ISP Recommendation?
Dewi Daniels
I'm thinking of changing from my existing ISP (mostly because Cable
Online don't provide any free web space), and would appreciate your
recommendations. My requirements are as follows:
Essential
---------
1. Free web space
2. Two E-mail addresses
3. Speed
Desirable
---------
1. Support for 56 kb/s modems (preferably X2)
2. 24 hr technical support
I've tried Pipex, who offer 2 Mb free web space, 5 E-mail addresses
and support for X2, but they seem slower than Cable Online for links
within the UK (Cable Online seems well-connected at LINX).
Any other suggestions?
--=20
Dewi Daniels
Guildford, England
Dave Gibson
On Fri, 04 Jul 1997 21:42:05 +0100, de...@cableol.co.uk (Dewi Daniels)
wrote:
>I'm thinking of changing from my existing ISP (mostly because Cable
>Online don't provide any free web space), and would appreciate your
>recommendations. My requirements are as follows:
>
>Essential
>---------
>1. Free web space
10 Mb
>2. Two E-mail addresses
4 POP3
>3. Speed
Plenty of it and consistant too
>
>Desirable
>---------
>1. Support for 56 kb/s modems (preferably X2)
Yes (x2)
>2. 24 hr technical support
No
email, fax and phone (normal rate phone line) during
9am to 7pm Mon to Fri
9am to 5pm Sat
>
>I've tried Pipex, who offer 2 Mb free web space, 5 E-mail addresses
>and support for X2, but they seem slower than Cable Online for links
>within the UK (Cable Online seems well-connected at LINX).
>
>Any other suggestions?
I tried over half a dozen when I moved from MSN and NetDirect where
the clear winner on quality and price. They have some major backbone
connections which means *speed* for the users.
Dave Gibson
dave....@cyberdude.com
Sarah Pearson
On Fri, 04 Jul 1997 21:42:05 +0100, Dewi Daniels wrote:
:>I'm thinking of changing from my existing ISP (mostly because Cable
:>Online don't provide any free web space), and would appreciate your
:>recommendations. My requirements are as follows:
Try ClaraNET. 9.90+vat/per month. http://www.clara.net/
:>Essential
:>---------
:>1. Free web space
5mb.
:>2. Two E-mail addresses
unlimited. anyt...@hostname.clara.net or host...@claranet.co.uk
:>3. Speed
Quite fast. More bandwidth very soon.
:>Desirable
:>---------
:>1. Support for 56 kb/s modems (preferably X2)
Number for X2 and number for K56Flex when released. Solid 33k6 for
me otherwise.
:>2. 24 hr technical support
Yes and also official support via the local support newsgroups.
Sarah Pearson, sa...@zippysoft.com
Scan your POP3c Mailbox automatically for unwanted messages.
Try POP3c for Java at http://www.zippysoft.com
*Beta 2 Now Available*
Frank Carr
On Fri, 04 Jul 1997 21:42:05 +0100, de...@cableol.co.uk (Dewi Daniels)
wrote:
>1. Free web space
10mb free
>2. Two E-mail addresses
Only one at the moment, but we are getting another 4 very soon.
>3. Speed
I connect at 33.6 about 90% of the tiime.
>1. Support for 56 kb/s modems (preferably X2)
x2 supported.
>2. 24 hr technical support
24 hr support on a freephone number.
plus they have their own NG's.
10ukp a month subscription.
Ring 0500 558844 for a free months trial.
Frank...@Virgin.Net
FC...@emarkt.com
The Work and Play Web Site
http://freespace.virgin.net/frank.carr/homepage.htm
Stuart Millington
>>2. Two E-mail addresses
>4 POP3
Sorry for two posts, but forgot :
unlimited SMTP mail <anything>@hostname.ndirect.co.uk
IMHO Demon is better, you'll have to wait for X2 though.
--
---------------------------------------------------------------------
- Stuart Millington -
- ph...@wormhole.demon.co.uk ph...@wormhole.ndirect.co.uk -
- http://www.wormhole.demon.co.uk http://www.wormhole.ndirect.co.uk -
Stuart Millington
>
>I tried over half a dozen when I moved from MSN and NetDirect where
>the clear winner on quality and price. They have some major backbone
>connections which means *speed* for the users.
Yes, but NetDirect's news server is crap and their tech
support frequently refuse to answer questions on the 'phone/quickly/at
all :-( (They are still my backup ISP at the moment though :-()
Stuart Millington
>>2. Two E-mail addresses
>
>Only one at the moment, but we are getting another 4 very soon.
[snip]
>Frank...@Virgin.Net
I assume you are referring to Virgin above. The thing that you
forget to point out is that they give out .net addresses to customers.
This is not allowed under RFC's (I don't want to start another flame
war here!) and does not speak highly of their technical competence as
an ISP.
Paul Womar
Stuart Millington <ph...@wormhole.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> I assume you are referring to Virgin above. The thing that you
> forget to point out is that they give out .net addresses to customers.
> This is not allowed under RFC's (I don't want to start another flame
> war here!) and does not speak highly of their technical competence as
> an ISP.
The same of course goes to Clueless Claranet.
--
To reply to this message there is no need to remove anything
from my email address, clever that!
Paul Womar - Ne...@pwomar.demon.co.uk
G-Dub U
Peter Simons wrote:
> Try the following
> netcom good conectivity and use USR total control racks
> Demon Unlimted mail boxs but use mixed rack therefore don't support
> 56k
> regards
> peter
> Dewi Daniels wrote:
> >
> > I'm thinking of changing from my existing ISP (mostly because Cable
> > Online don't provide any free web space), and would appreciate your
> > recommendations. My requirements are as follows:
> >
> > Essential
> > ---------
> > 1. Free web space
> > 2. Two E-mail addresses
> > 3. Speed
> >
> > Desirable
> > ---------
> > 1. Support for 56 kb/s modems (preferably X2)
> > 2. 24 hr technical support
> >
>
> Add to the above - U-NET
5Mb Web space (IIRC)Host based mail, so you can have as many email
accounts as you like (sort of)
I get 80 per cent 33.6K connects, 20 per cent 31.4K. Good lines to US
Trial boxes of both 56K protocols are in place.
Tech. support is not 24 hr but support on (private) u-net.support
newsgroups is excellent and swift.
AtB
Graham
Frank Carr
> I assume you are referring to Virgin above. The thing that you
>forget to point out is that they give out .net addresses to customers.
>This is not allowed under RFC's (I don't want to start another flame
>war here!) and does not speak highly of their technical competence as
>an ISP.
I am a newbie to the Internet, I might be being a little dumb here but
what difference does having .net at the end of an email address
make?. I can't see why someone should reject a service just because
of three letters at the end of an address. I have tried loads of these
free months trial thingies from loads of the other ISP's and to be
honest when you take in to account the number of email addresses
and the free 10mb web space and the 24hr freephone support line
and the 12 Virgin newsgroups and the chat rooms, I don't think any
of the other ISP's come even close for value for money. I have only
been with virgin for about six weeks, but I have not had any big
problems and I have had no problem getting my homepage online.
As I said I am a newbie, so maybe I am missing something here but it
stills seems very odd to reject an ISP just because of the email
address, you can get email addresses from other sources once you have
net access, If you go to my homepage there is a link on there that
sends you to a service that will let you pick from a list of domains
and choose your own address and then forward all mail that is sent
to that address to your normal address at your ISP.
cheers
Dewi Daniels
The ironic thing is that Virgin.Net use Cable Online's network
infrastructure (have you noticed the name of your news server), but
Virgin.Net offer free web space and charge less than Cable Online. You
almost get the impression Cable Online would prefer all their
customers to move to Virgin.=20
Stuart Millington
On Sun, 06 Jul 1997 10:22:32 +0100, de...@cableol.co.uk (Dewi Daniels)
wrote:
>The ironic thing is that Virgin.Net use Cable Online's network
>infrastructure (have you noticed the name of your news server), but
>Virgin.Net offer free web space and charge less than Cable Online. You
>almost get the impression Cable Online would prefer all their
>customers to move to Virgin.
So that's what they mean by a joint venture :-)
Dewi Daniels
ph...@wormhole.demon.co.uk (Stuart Millington) wrote:
> I assume you are referring to Virgin above. The thing that you
>forget to point out is that they give out .net addresses to customers.
>This is not allowed under RFC's (I don't want to start another flame
>war here!) and does not speak highly of their technical competence as
>an ISP.
I know that Virgin.Net and others have come in for a lot of flack over
this issue, although I'm not sure how bothered I should be over this
issue. When I was living in the States for a while, both AT&T and the
local telephone company offered Internet services, and gave out
att.net and bellsouth.net addresses to their customers. You would
think that a big phone company ought to know better. At least Virgin
have the excuse that virgin.co.uk had already been allocated to Virgin
Group staff, though virgin-net.co.uk would have been more appropriate.
Ian S Massingham
On Sun, 06 Jul 1997 18:04:27 +0100, Dewi Daniels <de...@cableol.co.uk> wrote:
>pe...@cara.demon.co.uk (Peter Ceresole) wrote:
>
>>But it's an indication of a selfish attitude of not caring
>>about the rest of the Net, and not wanting to contribute to it; just taking
>>away.
>
>It also seems to me that any conscientious ISP ought to provide a web
>proxy server, so as to minimise the load on the rest of the Internet,
>and yet Demon and Pipex are the only ISPs I know of that do this.
Prestel, Karoo and all other ISPs using the Planet Online backbone also
have access to a proxy server.
--
Ian S Massingham
Opinions expressed are my own
http://www.naut.org
Peter Ceresole
In article <33bf47a1...@news.virgin.net>,
My.Ad...@Bottom.Of.Page (Frank Carr) wrote:
>As I said I am a newbie, so maybe I am missing something here but it
>stills seems very odd to reject an ISP just because of the email
>address,
The point is that the .net addresses should be reserved for people posting
from the administration of a service provider. This can be quite useful to
know, as you will probably discover. Individuals on commercial servers are
generally identified by .com (USA) or .co (UK) addresses.
The Net has always depended on users abiding by basic operating rules,
sharing the resources and contributing back as much as they have taken.
Good ISPs such as Demon do this to the best of their ability; their
positive contribution to the Net, quite apart from the fact that they offer
an excellent service, is a powerful reason for staying with them and ISPs
like them.
Late-coming, clueless (or careless) ISPs like Virgin and Claranet have
chosen to ignore this perfectly good and useful naming convention. I
suspect it's because they may have felt that the .net addresses looked
"groovier". But it's an indication of a selfish attitude of not caring
about the rest of the Net, and not wanting to contribute to it; just taking
away. And it's a very good reason indeed not to touch their service with a
barge pole.
So long as you have a .net address you will either be taken for a staffer
of an ISP, or when uncovered, regarded as an idiot. It's all down to you of
course, but I'd advise you to find another supplier who didn't flaunt their
contempt for other users of the Net.
--
Peter
Frank Carr
On Sun, 06 Jul 1997 12:47:52 +0100, pe...@cara.demon.co.uk (Peter
Ceresole) wrote:
<mega snip>
>So long as you have a .net address you will either be taken for a staffer
>of an ISP, or when uncovered, regarded as an idiot. It's all down to you of
>course, but I'd advise you to find another supplier who didn't flaunt their
>contempt for other users of the Net.
Unfortunately There are a lot of people (like myself) who when looking
for an ISP will look at three things, the package, the service and the
most important thing the cost. IMHO Virgin comes out top overall and I
doubt very much if I (or many others) would drop virgin because of the
.net address. BUT I see your point about the address and I have added
some questions to your last post and forwarded it to Virgin and asked
them to explain why they have chosen this format. The good thing about
virgin is that they do act on request's from their users, which is why
they are giving us 5 email addresses instead of one and why they
updated the freespace server to make our web pages quicker.
As for anyone with a .net address being regarded as idiots, well I
think that if I had a choice of getting the package that Virgin offers
and having to pay more for the same package from some other ISP,
I know which one would be the idiots decision. Some of us have to
watch the pennies and can't afford to pay for "extras" when they come
as the basic package with another ISP. Maybe if the other
ISP's stopped ripping people off and offered a package like Virgin,
then we would drop virgin and use them.
Can you tell me of any other ISP that offers the following?,
5 email addresses,
10mb free web space,
^^^^^^^^
24hr FREEPHONE support,
12 newsgroups just for that ISP,
Chat rooms where the operations manager comes on to
answer your questions LIVE via the keyboard,
supports USRobotics x2 modems,
Actually listens and responds to suggestions from its users,
All for 10ukp a month.
If you can name any I would love to give them a try.
No .net addresses though. ;-)
Simon Pleasants
>On Fri, 04 Jul 1997 23:56:12 GMT, dave....@cyberdude.com (Dave
>Gibson) wrote:
>
>>
>>I tried over half a dozen when I moved from MSN and NetDirect where
>>the clear winner on quality and price. They have some major backbone
>>connections which means *speed* for the users.
>
> Yes, but NetDirect's news server is crap and their tech
>support frequently refuse to answer questions on the 'phone/quickly/at
>all :-( (They are still my backup ISP at the moment though :-()
Well I have been making the same observation about the news server for
a while but they appear to have finally sorted the problem. I have
had a full feed on now, daily, ever since I returned from a few months
abroad. Who knows, they might even have fixed it more than a few
weeks ago. Support is getting better, too. The reason I have stuck
with them is because of the speed and reliability of all the rest of
their services - and now with news finally coming good I think they
are excellent.
--
Simon Pleasants <sim...@ndirect.co.uk | www.ndirect.co.uk/ples>
Web Designer & Presenter, Mon - Fri, 2 - 4pm 107.1 FM The River
-- "Keep a dream in your pocket.... never let it fade away!" --
Stuart Millington
>Well I have been making the same observation about the news server for
>a while but they appear to have finally sorted the problem. I have
not yet - try getting *any* atricles from alt.binaries.drwho
>had a full feed on now, daily, ever since I returned from a few months
>abroad. Who knows, they might even have fixed it more than a few
>weeks ago. Support is getting better, too. The reason I have stuck
how bad were they before
>with them is because of the speed and reliability of all the rest of
>their services - and now with news finally coming good I think they
>are excellent.
I agree on speed. Once connected, X2 seems to have been re-enabled
this afternoon, their news and e-mail can keep up with it. They are
still far from excellent thought. But I will stick with them, as a
backup, for a while longer.
Roland Perry
In article <33bf985e...@news.cableol.net>, Dewi Daniels
<de...@cableol.co.uk> writes
>Demon and Pipex are the only ISPs I know of that do this.
But many others do, however, provide this service. For example, my
current ISP (Netcom):
'www-cache.netcom.net.uk port 8080'
--
rol...@perry.co.uk | "Time is an illusion. Launch times doubly so". "Very
0956 701 025 - Flextel | deep," said Arthur, "you should send that in to the
07050 60 40 80 - Fax | Reader's Digest. They've a page for people like you.
Paul Womar
Frank Carr <My.Ad...@Bottom.Of.Page> wrote:
> I am a newbie to the Internet, I might be being a little dumb here but
> what difference does having .net at the end of an email address
> make?
It basically shows that the ISP involved couldn't care less about the
standards and co-operative nature of the Internet and instead will do
what they damned well like to make a profit.
Paul Womar
Frank Carr <My.Ad...@Bottom.Of.Page> wrote:
> Can you tell me of any other ISP that offers the following?,
With Demon you get:
> 5 email addresses,
Infinite and collection by POP3 or SMTP.
> 10mb free web space,
5meg and a nicer looking URL: www.whatever.demon.co.uk
> 24hr FREEPHONE support,
24 continually engaged national rubbish technical support but I've never
really had cause to use it, the newsgroups are excellent for help so as
long as your problem isn't with news then you should be fine.
> 12 newsgroups just for that ISP,
Demon have loads and all(AFAIK) the others.
> Chat rooms where the operations manager comes on to
> answer your questions LIVE via the keyboard,
There may be people on IRC that would help out, I've never tried.
> supports USRobotics x2 modems,
No way.
> Actually listens and responds to suggestions from its users,
It has happened at times.
> All for 10ukp a month.
+VAT. You become your own internet node, your own site if you like
which also means that you get a fixed IP address, this alone is more
than enough to swing it for some people.
They may not do too well in your criteria but IMHO a lot of what you
asked for is not important, what is important is the speed and quality
of your connections and this is generally very good.
Peter Ceresole
In article <33d30732...@news.virgin.net>,
richard...@bigfoot.com (Richard Weller) wrote:
>I know this posting is in quoted printable/mime but i don't care.
Precisely. And neither do Virgin. So neither of you are worth a damn.
Simple.
--
Peter
Simon Pleasants
>On Sun, 06 Jul 1997 18:04:27 +0100, Dewi Daniels <de...@cableol.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>It also seems to me that any conscientious ISP ought to provide a web
>>proxy server, so as to minimise the load on the rest of the Internet,
>>and yet Demon and Pipex are the only ISPs I know of that do this.
>
>Prestel, Karoo and all other ISPs using the Planet Online backbone also
>have access to a proxy server.
NetDirect have a proxy server. I was kind of under the impression
that most did, having recently read through one or two beginners
guides to the net and getting access for some amusement recently.
Roland Perry
In article <33c0c746...@news.virgin.net>, Frank Carr
<My.Ad...@Bottom.Of.Page> writes
>That doesn't change the fact that some ISP's overcharge for their
>service, some will even charge just to connect you. Why should we
>use them?. Why is there such a big difference in charges between the
>ISP's, someone must be ripping someone off somewhere.
If a company is prepared to provide you with ISP services at a loss,
then that is your good fortune. And as a conscientious buyer one course
of action is to find the supplier who will make the biggest loss for
your particular mix of ISP requirements. (nb. some ISP activities cost
more than others to provide. One which is increasingly in the spotlight
is personal web space bandwidth, a few tens of MB a day of which will
eat the entire typical monthly subscription).
But don't accuse those who charge more, and thus make less of a loss, of
"ripping you off". If they were charging more in order to make excessive
profits, then you might have a case, but that's not what the current
state of the ISP market is.
--
0956 701 025 - Flextel | "Time is an illusion.
07050 60 40 80 - Fax | Launch times doubly so".
Phil Wattis
My.Ad...@Bottom.Of.Page (Frank Carr) wrote:
>That doesn't change the fact that some ISP's overcharge for their
>service, some will even charge just to connect you. Why should we
>use them?. Why is there such a big difference in charges between the
>ISP's, someone must be ripping someone off somewhere.
Not true, don't forget that differing ISP's offer differing levels of
service, another reason for being able to justify different
subscription costs.
Phil Wattis
Power Internet Ltd.
Frank Carr
On Mon, 7 Jul 1997 09:07:51 +0100, Roland Perry <rol...@perry.co.uk>
wrote:
>You are making a common mistake in thinking that the price an ISP
>charges is in some way related to the cost of providing the service,
>plus a profit margin. Very few ISPs make any profit at all on dial-up,
>and I seem to recall Virgin stating at launch that they expected to be
>in loss for their first three years.
That doesn't change the fact that some ISP's overcharge for their
service, some will even charge just to connect you. Why should we
use them?. Why is there such a big difference in charges between the
ISP's, someone must be ripping someone off somewhere.
Frank...@Virgin.Net
Frank Carr
On Mon, 7 Jul 1997 13:23:36 +0100, Roland Perry <rol...@perry.co.uk>
wrote:
<snip>
>But don't accuse those who charge more, and thus make less of a loss, of
>"ripping you off". If they were charging more in order to make excessive
>profits, then you might have a case, but that's not what the current
>state of the ISP market is.
I will give in on this one because I can't prove otherwise. :-(
But if you are right then Virgin must lose a hell of a lot every month
going by some of the other prices being charged for he same package by
some other ISP's. There are 5 people in my house that use my acount,
me, my wife and my three daughters, we clock up about 7 to 8 hours a
week online time, when I work out how much the same package that I
have with virgin and the 32 or so hours a month online time would cost
cost me with some of the other ISP's it can work out to be over 20ukp
A MONTH more because they would charge me for the extra web space
and 1.90ukp an hour after the first 10 hrs or so. Does this mean that
virgin lose 20ukp a month to let me use their service?. If so, then
times that by the number of *subscibed* users with virgin and add god
knows how many using the free trial thing, and that is one hell of a
bill at the end of the year.
Cheers Roland.
Peter Ceresole
In article <33c0f708...@news.virgin.net>,
My.Ad...@Bottom.Of.Page (Frank Carr) wrote:
>I'm sorry if I am being a pain but I just don't see why people should
>give up one of the best value for money ISP's around at the moment,
>just because of the email address. Apart from the fact that No one
>else on the Virgin newsgroups seems to have had anyone pull them
>up about the email address, so I doubt that it is a big issue anyway.
This has just been explained; see earlier in this thread. The Net operates
on the basis of mutual respect and assistance (yes, really- that's why it's
been good so far) and that involves following a few basic conventions laid
out in the RFCs. Virgin have chosen not to.
If they are that careless of other users of the Net, then they can't be
much good for anything else either. You may feel you get a good service; I
get one every bit as good from Demon who are a responsible ISP who behave
properly towards other net users. Virgin do not. If you want to reward them
for thweir irresponsiblity, that's your business, but it says little for
you or for them.
--
Peter
©Brian Leary©
On Sun, 06 Jul 1997 22:11:54 GMT, richard...@bigfoot.com (Richard
Weller) wrote:
Hi Richard !
>On Sun, 06 Jul 1997 12:47:52 +0100, pe...@cara.demon.co.uk (Peter Ceresole) wrote:
>
><a boring load of shite.>
He He !
>Who cares weather email address end with .net? Is it THAT important?
Nope :-)
>Oh on its the end of the world! And all because Virgin email address end with .net.
He He !
>I bet your only jeaious you don't have address in ending in .net anyway.
yeah, I bet he is as well !! To chicken to admit it !!!!
>Why do the FFC rules say you are not surpose to have an address ending in .net?
Probably some pathetic reason :-)
>I want a real good reason not one of your crumby "thats what staff are surpose to
>have" answers.
Get him told Richard !!!
>I know this posting is in quoted printable/mime but i don't care.
he He !
>Flame me if you like i couldn't give a t*ss.
Thats the spirit !!!
And for the rest of you, Why dont you all just SHUT UP (exept
Virgin.NET users !!) cos none of you have a clue what your talking
about !!!!
Virgin.NET rules !!!!!
Theres only ONE Virgin.NET NET NET NET NET NET NET NET NET !!!!!!
L8A !
---------
bri...@bigfoot.com
http://vzone.virgin.net/b.leary/
ICQ : 1029631
PGP Key Available !
Andy Veitch
Peter Ceresole wrote:
>
> The Net operates on the basis of mutual respect and assistance (yes, really- that's why it's
> been good so far) and that involves following a few basic conventions laid
> out in the RFCs. Virgin have chosen not to.
I have an open mind thus far on this subject, but I have no interest
whatsoever in petty bureaucracy of any kind. Of those of you that have
this seemingly psychopathic hatred of Virgin Internet, could one of you
point me to where I can read these "basic conventions" for myself to
make my own judgement? Some indication and justification of how you feel
that an ISP using *.net actually causes you some harm would be of
interest too.
>
> If they are that careless of other users of the Net, then they can't be
> much good for anything else either. You may feel you get a good service; I
> get one every bit as good from Demon who are a responsible ISP who behave
> properly towards other net users. Virgin do not. If you want to reward them
> for thweir irresponsiblity, that's your business, but it says little for
> you or for them.
It is a pity, and doesn't help your argument, that you hurl insults at
Virgin Internet customers like this. From my own point of view, at the
time I was thinking of getting connected I happened to be buying an
audio CD in a Virgin shop, took home a free Virgin.Net CD-rom and signed
up. I could have signed up with anyone - apart from your problem with
*.net (which I've not seen justification for...yet) are there any other
reasons for villifying Virgin Internet further?
Andy.
Frank Carr
On Fri, 04 Jul 1997 21:42:05 +0100, de...@cableol.co.uk (Dewi Daniels)
wrote:
>I'm thinking of changing from my existing ISP (mostly because Cable
>Online don't provide any free web space), and would appreciate your
>recommendations. My requirements are as follows:
<snip>
>Any other suggestions?
Now look at what you have started. ;-)
Ben Dooks
In article <33d30732...@news.virgin.net>
richard...@bigfoot.com (Richard Weller) wrote:
> On Sun, 06 Jul 1997 12:47:52 +0100, pe...@cara.demon.co.uk (Peter =
> Ceresole) wrote:
>
> <a boring load of shite.>
Hmm... great summing up...
> Who cares weather email address end with .net? Is it THAT important?=20
It is to us.
> Oh on its the end of the world! And all because Virgin email address end =
> with .net.
Its not the end of the world, its just an excuse to have a good technical
discussion.
> I bet your only jeaious you don't have address in ending in .net anyway.
I don't want a .net address. I've already got fluff.org.
> Why do the FFC rules say you are not surpose to have an address ending in=
> .net?
You answer the question you pose in the next (whatever you want to call it)
> I want a real good reason not one of your crumby "thats what staff are =
> surpose to have" answers.
That is a jolly good answer to me. Its in the RFC y'know.
> I know this posting is in quoted printable/mime but i don't care.
>
> =46lame me if you like i couldn't give a t*ss.=20
Pitty.
> Richard Weller
Another brilliant reason why bigfoot.com has just entered my killfile.
--
Ben Dooks, b...@fluff.org \
http://www.fluff.org/ | Oops, I think we broke her.
http://www.oaktree.co.uk/ |
Frank Carr
On 6 Jul 1997 22:21:52 GMT, Paul Booth <pab...@linux.uk.eu.org>
wrote:
<snip>
>5 email addresses:
>
>How many email addresses do you need? I have unlimited on my box but I
>only use at most 2, my personal address and a control address. I can't see
I need 5, 1 for me and one each for my wife and daughters.
>10mb of web space:
>
>The major cost of web space is the bandwidth, not the disk space, but even
>so, do many people use 10 megs?
I don't know how much space other people use but I have just started
mine and I have already used 1mb, plus I will be setting up another
page in the future, which means I will be limited to 5mb each. If I
was using some of the other ISP's I would be paying for "extras".
>24 hour helpline:
>
>Valid to many people, I agree, especially new users, but what if the
>helpdesk staff are poorly trained, underpaid or just plain crap?
I would say that this is a must for newbies to the net. The staff at
virgin are always very polite and very helpful.
>Virgin newsgroups:
>
>The people maketh the place? The U-Net groups are excellent and they are
Ditto.
>Chat rooms:
>
>Presumably you mean IRC channels?
Yes.
>The real questions you should be asking are what are their bandwidth
<snip>
I tried their free month online offer, everything worked well, I could
do everything I wanted to do on the net and if I had a problem (which
I did, but it turned out to be my fault and not theirs) the freephone
support team would stay on the phone for as long as it took to sort
out the problem. As this was by far the best service from an ISP I had
received, I signed up with them.
>This is how companies such as Compuserve do so well; in truth they are
>awful for Internet provision, but people go with them because of their
>nice front end and free offers of X number of hours online.
Compuserve was the WORST ISP that I tried, it would take me 5 or 6
attempts to log on because I kept getting the "Server Busy" message.
<snip>
>At the end of the day, the dam is bursting and everything will be overrun
>by people content only with retrieving the latest copy of IE and finding
>this cool new toy 'Usenet' on which they can post crap to thousands of
>people at the press of a button. How many people would know what an RFC is
>nowadays, much less would go and read one? How many people think that
>Microsoft *started* the Internet? What about gopher, wais or fsp? Any of
>them know what they are? Unlikely that the majority of them will do
>anything but give you a blank look and slobber phrases like "surf the
>'net", "I'm a cyberdude" or "yeah man, I'm on the Information
>Superhighway, I've got my own way cool homepage full of this Java stuff
>and Real Audio streams but you'll need a Compaq Pentium P200 running
>Windows '98 and Netscape 9 to load it but I've put in a little button
>that says 'download some shite here' on it so everythings cool."
As I have already said, I am new to all this internet stuff, so I have
to agree with you about us newbies not knowing about half the things
you mentioned above, BUT, I know enough to let me do what I want
to do, eg Telnet to bbses, send/receive email and newsgroup messages,
put my own site online and keep it updated, capture sites so I can
browse them offline to keep my phone bill down, get files I need and
visit other sites that interest me, so do I really need to know any of
the tech stuff?. Surely if the ISP I am using is working without any
problems then that is enough.
<snip>
>It's the fact that they are breaking rules to make their services look
>good rather than abiding by them for the good of the majority.
Err...How does giving their users a .net address make them look good?
I'm sorry if I am being a pain but I just don't see why people should
give up one of the best value for money ISP's around at the moment,
just because of the email address. Apart from the fact that No one
else on the Virgin newsgroups seems to have had anyone pull them
up about the email address, so I doubt that it is a big issue anyway.
No doubt people will let me know if I am wrong. ;-)
Thanks for your reply Paul.
Oliver Clarke
In article <33C145...@virgin.net>, Andy Veitch
<andrew...@virgin.net> writes
>Some indication and justification of how you feel
>that an ISP using *.net actually causes you some harm would be of
>interest too.
I think that it's a bit like someone who is not a doctor putting "Dr"
before their name. That might not make any difference at all if you're
talking about politics, but it might give you a false impression of
their status (and thus the value of what they're saying) if you're
discussing medical matters, and they advise you to take two aspirin and
see how you feel in the morning! If someone with an @demon.net address
gives me some advice on Internet stuff, I can be fairly sure they have a
better idea what they're talking about than me, but Virgin's policy
means that the same is not true of them, but most people won't know
that...
As you say, it's more indicative of Virgin's attitude than your own.
Without *some* common standards the Internet would not be what it is
today, anarchic though it seems (and is, in many respects). I doubt,
however, that Virgin will change their tune without some indication from
or agreement by their own clients that a change would be for the best.
Regards,
Oliver Clarke.
--
The Pig Pen <URL:http://www.pigpen.demon.co.uk/>
Support Community - The Computer Communicators Association
"Defending computer communications in the UK"
World Wide Web <URL:http://www.community.org.uk/>
Email <URL:mailto:in...@community.org.uk>
Frank Carr
On Mon, 07 Jul 1997 22:40:17 +0100, Ben Dooks <b...@fluff.org> wrote:
<snip>
>Since when has the number of newsgroups been important? and what
Which do you think is better 2 or 3 groups to cover everything or
several groups so you can split the subjects up and make it easier
to find the subject you want?. There are hundreds of postings a week
in the virgin newsgroups so it makes life a lot easier to be able to
split the messages into the right group.
>do you do with that many? care to list them?
Damn..err...let me see....there is,
Virgin.chat (very busy and very friendly)
Virgin.feedback (what the users think to the service)
Virgin.homepage (lot's of help with your homepage)
Virgin.practice (guess)
Vigin.Announce (Virgin let us know about anything new)
Virgin.support (for things that can wait)
Virgin.tech (help with anything technical)
Virgin.tech.isdn (help with isdn connections)
Virgin.test (guess)
And I can't remember the rest but you get the idea.
Virgin believe in helping it's users as much as they can,
thats why they supply all the virgin newsgroups and why
they come online so you can ask them ANYTHING YOU WANT
and why they also supply a 24hr FREEPHONE support line, which
I might add, I have always got through to on the first attempt.
>> Chat rooms where the operations manager comes on to
>> answer your questions LIVE via the keyboard,
>
>Interesting idea... how long do they spend chatting about
>irrelevant things though?
They answer whatever you ask them, so if you have asked them
a question then it can't be irrelevant really can it?, and he stays
online for as long as it takes.
>> supports USRobotics x2 modems,
>
>Didn't think that x2 had passed as a standard afair
Check out USR's web site and take a look at the list of ISP's who are
using x2 or who are going to use x2. Thats the thing about Virgin,
they look after their users.
Does having a .net address mean I should drop all this and all the
other stuff I listed before?, because I can't find any other ISP that
offers Virgins package AND service for the same price.
Frank Carr
On 6 Jul 1997 23:14:23 GMT, Paul Booth <pab...@linux.uk.eu.org>
wrote:
<big snip>
>LIVE? Ours records his answers hours before he's that good and has a
>system that automatically plays them back at the appropriate time :).
ROTFL
Ah yeah, But can he put a fruit pastel in his mouth without chewing?,
Ours can at Virgin.xxx <--- fill in the three missing letters :-(
<big snip)
>end of the day it's up to you to make a choice, and if you're happy then
>Virgin is undoubtedly the best ISP for you.
>
>After all, at the end of the day there's no point in moving to Demon or
>wherever and being unhappy at losing the virgin.* groups if they're
>important to you, no matter what Demon's service is like.
At last, someone who agrees with me, I was starting to feel a bit
picked on for a minute there. <sob>
After all, all I did was answer someone who had asked a question, then
all hell broke loose. :-(
Theres nothing like breaking a newbie in gently is there lads?.
Sheeesh! this Internet lark can get a bit hectic at times.
Right I'm off to lay down in a dark room. <twitch, twitch>
Thanks for your reply Paul, <my hero>
Peter Ceresole
In article <33c43c46...@news.virgin.net>,
Bri...@Bigfoot.Com (©Brian Leary©) wrote:
>And for the rest of you, Why dont you all just SHUT UP (exept
>Virgin.NET users !!) cos none of you have a clue what your talking
>about !!!!
>
>Virgin.NET rules !!!!!
>
>
>Theres only ONE Virgin.NET NET NET NET NET NET NET NET NET !!!!!!
Good heavens. Do Virgin really offer a home to these animals? Seems to
prove the point.
--
Peter
Peter Ceresole
In article <ef232...@lyta.fluff.org>,
Ben Dooks <b...@fluff.org> wrote:
>>Very few ISPs make any profit at all on dial-up,
>> and I seem to recall Virgin stating at launch that they expected to be
>> in loss for their first three years.
>
>I'm just wondering if Demon do... if they do have 100k customers all
>paying 10ukp month... that makes a lot of money comming in each
>month. 1M if my maths is correct.
They have apparently made a profit in most years but not last year,
although they claim that they're back in profit again now. But then that's
what most companies would say. It's true that last year they did a lot of
setting up, but the race to keep abreast of numbers is very expensive
indeed. Expensive extra bandwidth, very expensive servers to handle all
those extra customers. Extra support staff (Demon hired hundreds of them
last year and more this year).
Numbers are absolutely no guarantee of profit; Compuserve are by all
accounts in deep trouble and AOL who are the largest provider in the world
by some margin (around 6-8 million users) were reported last year as being
in severe financial trouble and making a loss.
It confirms the general rule; nobody at all is making any serious money
from the Internet. Most are losing out.
--
Peter
Peter Ceresole
In article <33C145...@virgin.net>,
Andy Veitch <andrew...@virgin.net> wrote:
>could one of you
>point me to where I can read these "basic conventions" for myself to
>make my own judgement?
They are contained in a list of published "RFC"s. They're the only
standards on the Net and they are far from being bureaucratic; they are
simply common technical standards which allow the Net to work. They're
available on line but I forget the address; presumably anybody in Virgin's
admin should be able to point you at them.
They are *not* easy reading but then they're not meant to be. All that's
required is that admins should understand and follow them.
I have nothing against Virgin except that they choose to flout a technical
standard with which they could easily have complied. This speaks of a
thoroughly bad attitude which is potentially damaging to me and to all net
users. That's why I say that to use them is to condone selfish and uncaring
practices.
--
Peter
Roland Perry
In article <33c103b5...@news.virgin.net>, Frank Carr
<My.Ad...@Bottom.Of.Page> writes
>Does this mean that
>virgin lose 20ukp a month to let me use their service?
Costing an ISP's service is very much a set of swings and roundabouts -
especially if part of the package is unlimited surfing time, even more
so if it's bandwidth unlimited free web space (the number of MB of web
storage is a red herring, the thing that costs the money is the amount
the space is accessed).
Even in these hard times, the "trade price" of an ISP customer is more
than ukp100, which I believe does not so much represent the future
profits to be made from them, but what it would cost to recruit one from
scratch. Taking a modest view over two years, that means the average ISP
could well be looking at ukp50 a year loss while they bring the average
customer on board.
And there will always be the customers with higher than average usage,
which will cost the ISP even more to service. Balanced against the high
users, however, are the dormant ones; and ultimate profitability may
depend more on the average usage of the ISP's typical customer mix, than
the price they charge.
Roland Perry
In article <ef232...@lyta.fluff.org>, Ben Dooks <b...@fluff.org> writes
>if they do have 100k customers all
>paying 10ukp month... that makes a lot of money comming in each
>month. 1M if my maths is correct.
They also have a lot of costs associated with the number of subscribers.
If we are doing profit and loss accounts on the back of an envelope
(which isn't really fair, because unless you are in the business you
don't know the extent of their costs in areas that are neccessary but
seldom publically discussed), you could start with 300 staff at (what?)
20K a year average - that's 6 months worth of subscriptions...
cl...@demon.net
In article <ef232...@lyta.fluff.org>, Ben Dooks <b...@fluff.org> wrote:
>> Very few ISPs make any profit at all on dial-up,
Our accounts (like those of any limited company) are available at Companies
House. However, unlike any other ISP I am aware of, we have published them
on our web site.
--
Clive D.W. Feather | Work: <cl...@demon.net> | Tel: +44 181 371 1138
Director of | Home: <cl...@davros.org> | Fax: +44 181 371 1037
Software Development |
Demon Internet Ltd. |
Aidan Skinner
For some unknown reason Frank Carr <My.Ad...@Bottom.Of.Page> drooled
the following:
>Sheeesh! this Internet lark can get a bit hectic at times.
hectic? Some complete and utter *bastard* has subscribed me to around 30
mailling lists....
To quote Vivian: You utter, utter *bastard*
- Aidan (less amused than Queen Victoria when she's got PMT and has run
out of dope...)
--
perkyperkyperkyperkyperkyperkyperkyperkyperkyperkyperky
|Kipper The Fish e-mail aidan@skinner demon co uk |
|I would miss the bliss that is this fish's kiss |
------------http://www.skinner.demon.co.uk/------------
Malcolm Ray
Is this a private argument, or can anyone join in?
On Tue, 08 Jul 1997 10:06:10 +0100, Andy Veitch <andrew...@virgin.net>
wrote:
>Peter Ceresole wrote:
>
>> They are contained in a list of published "RFC"s. They're the only
>> standards on the Net and they are far from being bureaucratic; they are
>> simply common technical standards which allow the Net to work. They're
>> available on line but I forget the address; presumably anybody in Virgin's
>> admin should be able to point you at them.
>
>I shall make further enquiries. In the meantime, it's a litle
>disappointing to find a point so strongly argued lacking (thus far) in
>factual evidence. As for whether they are bureaucratic - that will
>depend on the content and reason.
RFCs are available all over the place, but I generally use:
ftp://sunsite.doc.ic.ac.uk/rfc/
At that location, the file 'rfc-index.txt' is the list of RFCs
available. Virgin should have their own archive, since some of their
staff need to have ready access to various RFCs.
>> They are *not* easy reading but then they're not meant to be. All that's
>> required is that admins should understand and follow them.
>
>I'll assume this to be a patronising comment based on prejudice and
>ignore it.
I can't speak for Peter, but I would have said the same, and I
*wouldn't* have meant it to be patronising. These are (for the most
part) technical documents aimed at those with extensive experience of
designing, implementing or administering networks or related services.
There's no reason to expect the end user without that background to
find them easily intelligible. That's not the intended audience.
>> I have nothing against Virgin except that they choose to flout a technical
>> standard with which they could easily have complied. This speaks of a
>> thoroughly bad attitude which is potentially damaging to me and to all net
>> users. That's why I say that to use them is to condone selfish and uncaring
>> practices.
>
>I don't have any particular reason to support Virgin (other than being a
>satisfied customer, albeit after one or two problems along the way). It
>isn't easy to understand your seemingly prejudiced views without some
>form of proof of 'flouting technical standards' and 'thoroughly bad
>attitude', and of being 'potentially damaging' and 'selfish and
>uncaring'.
If I send you mail, my packets will (on a good day) pass through about
eight routers before reaching their destination. These routers, and
the other network hardware involved, are manufactured and operated by
various companies. I trust that all of them will "do the right thing"
with those packets: hopefully the router vendors have correctly
implemented the relevant standards, and the ISPs and telcos involved
interoperate correctly. When you download your mail, you (presumably)
use a mail client which implements the POP protocol. This works,
because whoever wrote your mail client and whoever wrote the POP server
Virgin run both studied the relevant standard(s) and correctly
implemented them. When you reply to the message, you (probably) use
another protocol, SMTP, and again the right thing happens because the
vendors involved have correctly implemented the standard.
Those of us involved in administering networks or network services will
recognise that this is an ideal. Sometimes, products are poorly
implemented. They *mostly* work, but there are rough edges where the
implementor failed to understand part of the standard, or where they
simply chose to ignore it, perhaps for commercial reasons. This tends
to cause problems: sometimes minor, sometimes major. This is one major
cause of ulcers and premature baldness in network/system
administrators.
This leads to us investing the RFCs with an importance which, to the
layman, may appear excessive in some cases. In the case of the
restriction on the use of .net addresses, it's obvious that giving
these out to customers won't bring about the imminent death of the net
(film at 11). But it makes us wonder: if Virgin feel free to flout
*that* rule (apparently with very little need), what others will they
ignore?
Having explained (hopefully) why many people are unhappy about Virgin,
I'm now going to undermine the point. I think the relevant restriction
is in RFC1591 ("Domain Name System Structure and Delegation"):
NET - This domain is intended to hold only the computers of network
providers, that is the NIC and NOC computers, the
administrative computers, and the network node computers. The
customers of the network provider would have domain names of
their own (not in the NET TLD).
One interpretation of this gives Virgin some justification for their
practice, though I think the *intention* of the text is clearly against
them. If anyone can point to something more concrete, I'd be
interested.
--
Malcolm Ray Computer Services, Royal Holloway University of London
It's a long way from anywhere
Dave Mayall
Malcolm Ray wrote:
> Having explained (hopefully) why many people are unhappy about Virgin,
> I'm now going to undermine the point. I think the relevant restriction
> is in RFC1591 ("Domain Name System Structure and Delegation"):
>
> NET - This domain is intended to hold only the computers of network
> providers, that is the NIC and NOC computers, the
> administrative computers, and the network node computers. The
> customers of the network provider would have domain names of
> their own (not in the NET TLD).
>
> One interpretation of this gives Virgin some justification for their
> practice, though I think the *intention* of the text is clearly against
> them. If anyone can point to something more concrete, I'd be
> interested.
The problem is that;
1) All the computers with virgin.net names do indeed belong to Virgin
2) Most ISPs flout RFC1591 because their customers do not have domain names
of their own, they share the ISPs domain name.
--
Dave Mayall
The views expressed are mine and may not be those of my employer
Private e-mail to david....@ukonline.co.uk please
Peter Ceresole
In article <33C203...@virgin.net>,
Andy Veitch <andrew...@virgin.net> wrote:
>I shall make further enquiries. In the meantime, it's a litle
>disappointing to find a point so strongly argued lacking (thus far) in
>factual evidence. As for whether they are bureaucratic - that will
>depend on the content and reason.
Just find the RFCs. They are a fact. They exist. Then you'll find out what
we're talking about.
>> They are *not* easy reading but then they're not meant to be. All that's
>> required is that admins should understand and follow them.
>
>I'll assume this to be a patronising comment based on prejudice and
>ignore it.
Just keep your shirt on. It's the literal truth. I don't read the RFCs,
because they are obscure and boring and I don't need to know, but I have
seen them discussed and quoted at length and the particular RFC that refers
to the .net suffix was discussed (and the relevant section quoted in full)
last week in a group I take. I've expired that article now- but you can
find the RFC easily enough by asking somebody who knows about them at
Virgin. At least I presume that they know about RFCs; they need to. But
they don't show it much. The RFC number is, I think, 1035 or 6, but I'm not
sure.
>It
>isn't easy to understand your seemingly prejudiced views without some
>form of proof of 'flouting technical standards' and 'thoroughly bad
>attitude', and of being 'potentially damaging' and 'selfish and
>uncaring'.
Until you read the relevant RFC or speak to someone who knows about it, you
don't know what you're talking about.
Some clueless idiots will tell you that RFCs are advisory only, also that
some of them are out of date (this usually accompanies a selective idea of
what *they* would like to be in date). It's all nonsense; RFCs are the glue
that enables the Net to function. Ignoring them is wrong.
I have no prejudice against Virgin- rather the opposite. I like their
airline. But I wouldn't fancy it if they started to ignore airways
regulations. And when Virgin net pulled this stupid stunt over their users'
addresses it was a thoroughly bad sign. I must say I lost any respect I
initially had.
--
Peter
Andy Veitch
Thomas Lee wrote:
> Please - go study the net for 6 months, then come back and tell us how
> to run it.
Erm, I don't recall trying to tell you how to run anything. Just trying
to understand your reasoning, but since you can only put it across in
an arrogant manner, I'm wasting your time and mine.
Andy.
Andy Veitch
Peter Ceresole wrote:
>
> Just find the RFCs. They are a fact. They exist. Then you'll find out what
> we're talking about.
Which is *precisely* why I asked about them.
>
> Until you read the relevant RFC or speak to someone who knows about it, you
> don't know what you're talking about.
See above.
> Some clueless idiots will tell you that RFCs are advisory only, also that
> some of them are out of date (this usually accompanies a selective idea of
> what *they* would like to be in date). It's all nonsense; RFCs are the glue
> that enables the Net to function. Ignoring them is wrong.
As posted elsewhere on this thread, thank-you all for your 'guidance'.
It's just a pity some of you have to be so arrogant about it.
You will be pleased to read that I shan't be continuing this discussion.
The interest I had in learning hasn't exactly been encouraged by the
attitude some of you have taken. Can't see what benefit that has to any
of us.
Andy.
Paul Womar
Andy Veitch <andrew...@virgin.net> wrote:
> Peter Ceresole wrote:
>
> > They are contained in a list of published "RFC"s. They're the only
> > standards on the Net and they are far from being bureaucratic; they are
> > simply common technical standards which allow the Net to work. They're
> > available on line but I forget the address; presumably anybody in Virgin's
> > admin should be able to point you at them.
>
> I shall make further enquiries. In the meantime, it's a litle
> disappointing to find a point so strongly argued lacking (thus far) in
> factual evidence.
If you can't find them then try ftp.demon.co.uk/pub/doc/rfc/ there is an
index file there.
> > They are *not* easy reading but then they're not meant to be. All that's
> > required is that admins should understand and follow them.
>
> I'll assume this to be a patronising comment based on prejudice and
> ignore it.
Not atall, some are clear and easy to understand and some are very
complex descriptions of the inner workings of standard protocols which
are decribed in hundreds of pages of necessary but mind numbing (to most
of us) detail. You seem to be willing to have a reasonable discussion
on the subject and I'm sure Peter is treating you in kind.
--
To reply to this message there is no need to remove anything
from my email address, clever that!
Paul Womar - Ne...@pwomar.demon.co.uk
Joka
On Mon, 07 Jul 97 10:16:19 GMT, ma...@ukonline.co.uk (Matt Kelland)
wrote:
<snip>
>>3. Speed
>Speed of what? News/mail/connections/UK WWW/US WWW?
Now that is a very *bizarre* question from the 'Business Development
Manager' of an ISP! I'm only mildly surprised that you didn't
continue that list with, 'cars/bikes/etc...'
I would have thought that as an ISP you should be aiming to provide
the best and fastest service possible to your customers, NOT enquiring
as to whether they should actually *expect* decent levels of speed for
*any* of the services that you listed.
Joka
Subvert the dominant paradigm
Paul Womar
Peter Ceresole <pe...@cara.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> Good heavens. Do Virgin really offer a home to these animals? Seems to
> prove the point.
Are you sure that there are 2? I mean: same ISP, same newsreader, same
forwarding service and both utter morons, just coincidence?
Malcolm Ray
On Tue, 08 Jul 1997 20:38:31 +0100, Peter Ceresole <pe...@cara.demon.co.uk>
won friends and influenced people by writing:
>Just find the RFCs. They are a fact. They exist. Then you'll find out what
>we're talking about.
And:
>Just keep your shirt on. It's the literal truth. I don't read the RFCs,
>because they are obscure and boring and I don't need to know, but I have
>seen them discussed and quoted at length and the particular RFC that refers
>to the .net suffix was discussed (and the relevant section quoted in full)
>last week in a group I take. I've expired that article now- but you can
>find the RFC easily enough by asking somebody who knows about them at
>Virgin. At least I presume that they know about RFCs; they need to. But
>they don't show it much. The RFC number is, I think, 1035 or 6, but I'm not
>sure.
And:
>Until you read the relevant RFC or speak to someone who knows about it, you
>don't know what you're talking about.
>
>Some clueless idiots will tell you that RFCs are advisory only, also that
>some of them are out of date (this usually accompanies a selective idea of
>what *they* would like to be in date). It's all nonsense; RFCs are the glue
>that enables the Net to function. Ignoring them is wrong.
Black kitchen utensils spring to mind here. Perhaps you could make a
*little* more effort before making so much noise about RFCs. FYI:
RFC1035 has been *officially* obsoleted (not by clueless idiots). Not
that it is relevant to this question anyway. Neither is RFC1036.
I've seen both sides of this issue argued, by people who know what
they're talking about, and who are able to put their points across
civilly. I doubt whether many people will be persuaded by *your*
bluster, though. Quite the reverse, I suspect.
Suggestions for further reading:
RFC2119: Key Words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels
RFC1796: Not All RFCs are Standards
RFC2026: The Internet Standards Process -- Revision 3
RFC1925: The Twelve Networking Truths
©Brian Leary©
On Mon, 07 Jul 1997 23:16:02 GMT, richard...@bigfoot.com (Richard
Weller) wrote:
<A Big MASSIVE Snip ?>
>Did you know that 90% of Net Nerd's live at Demon?
Hey man Richard ! This bloke is 89.9% of them !
He is a great big NERRRRRRRDDDD !!!
We hate Netnerds !!!
brian
Paul L. Allen
In article <slrn5s4f02....@uhaa022.cc.rhbnc.ac.uk>
uha...@sun.rhbnc.ac.uk (Malcolm Ray) writes:
> Having explained (hopefully) why many people are unhappy about Virgin,
> I'm now going to undermine the point. I think the relevant restriction
> is in RFC1591 ("Domain Name System Structure and Delegation"):
>
> NET - This domain is intended to hold only the computers of network
> providers, that is the NIC and NOC computers, the
> administrative computers, and the network node computers. The
> customers of the network provider would have domain names of
> their own (not in the NET TLD).
>
> One interpretation of this gives Virgin some justification for their
> practice,
It says that their mail relay can be in the .net domain. Some argue that
this means that the customers must also have e-mail addresses in the .net
domain because of this. Those who use this argument have little
understanding of how things work (or can be made to work by competent ISPs)
and should learn from the fact that mail for p...@sktb.demon.co.uk is held on
punt-1.mail.demon.net. Demon can get it right, as can many other ISPs.
> though I think the *intention* of the text is clearly against
> them.
I think the letter of the text too, once you remember that RFC 1035
explicitly considers *mailboxes* (including the local part) to be
renderable as full domain names. In some types of DNS records a mailbox
will be specified as a domain name by replacing the @ with a . (if
there is a . in the local part this is replaced by \.). So
fred....@foo.bar.com is returned in certain types of DNS record as
the domain name fred\.bloggs.foo.bar.com.
One example of a widely-used DNS record which uses this is an SOA record
which contains a field called RNAME. The definition given is:
RNAME A <domain-name> which specifies the mailbox of the
person responsible for this zone.
SOA records returned by DNS do indeed have the mailbox data rendered as
a domain name.
Since 1035 and 1850 both came from people who have designed much of the
core functionality of the Net, who were both at ISI at the times the
RFCs were written and that ISI looks after the assigned numbers RFC for
IANA, it's reasonable to conclude that Postel wrote from a position
of knowning that mailboxes are domain names as far as DNS is concerned.
If any mistake is being made it is by those who do not understand the
Domain Name System well enough to know that maiboxes *are* domain names.
--Paul
Ian G Batten
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In article <1997070701...@pwomar.demon.co.uk>,
Paul Womar <Newsm...@pwomar.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> The guidelines expressly state that a .net address is NOT for customers,
Where? The RFCs state that you can't hand out .net domain names to
customers. I don't think anyone does that, do they? Perhaps you could
point to an RFC that talks about what email addresses you can hand out?
Don't bother with any RFC that talks about ``Domain Name Service'' ---
that's the _right_ hand side of the at-sign.
ian
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Matt Kelland
In article <33c5b043...@news.virgin.net>, jo...@bigfoot.com (Joka) wrote:
>On Mon, 07 Jul 97 10:16:19 GMT, ma...@ukonline.co.uk (Matt Kelland)
>wrote:
>
><snip>
>
>>>3. Speed
>
>>Speed of what? News/mail/connections/UK WWW/US WWW?
>
>Now that is a very *bizarre* question from the 'Business Development
>Manager' of an ISP! I'm only mildly surprised that you didn't
>continue that list with, 'cars/bikes/etc...'
It's quite important to find out what exactly the customers are most
interested in: by speed, some customers mean connection speeds (do we support
28.8, 33.6, 56k, ISDN, etc); some are interested in how long it takes
to actually connect between dialling the modem and being able to do something;
others are interested in news servers that are updated quickly and which
propagate quickly; others want fast access to Web/FTP sites in the US; and so
on.
>I would have thought that as an ISP you should be aiming to provide
>the best and fastest service possible to your customers, NOT enquiring
>as to whether they should actually *expect* decent levels of speed for
>*any* of the services that you listed.
We do aim to provide the best possible service in all these areas, but it is
important to clarify that these are a range of services, each with different
characteristics.
An ISP which one customer finds "fast" may be "slow" for another, if they
are using different services with that ISP's suite. In any one area,
there is probably an ISP that is "faster" than UK Online, but that does not
necessarily mean that "overall" they are "faster". Hence my question.
Matt Kelland
Business Development Manager, UK Online Limited
http://www.ukonline.co.uk
Tel: 01749 333300 Fax: 01749 333310
Malcolm Ray
On Wed, 9 Jul 1997 00:12:32 +0100, Paul L. Allen <p...@sktb.demon.co.uk> wrote:
[snip: my quote from RFC1591 about the use of the NET TLD]
>It says that their mail relay can be in the .net domain. Some argue that
>this means that the customers must also have e-mail addresses in the .net
>domain because of this. Those who use this argument have little
>understanding of how things work (or can be made to work by competent ISPs)
>and should learn from the fact that mail for p...@sktb.demon.co.uk is held on
>punt-1.mail.demon.net. Demon can get it right, as can many other ISPs.
I haven't seen anyone claim that: all the "pro .net" arguments I've
seen have claimed that it's *permitted*, not that it's *required*. But
I'll take your word for it. As you say, anyone who took that viewpoint
would be wrong.
Can you cite articles which present that argument?
>> though I think the *intention* of the text is clearly against
>> them.
>
>I think the letter of the text too, once you remember that RFC 1035
>explicitly considers *mailboxes* (including the local part) to be
>renderable as full domain names. In some types of DNS records a mailbox
>will be specified as a domain name by replacing the @ with a . (if
>there is a . in the local part this is replaced by \.). So
>fred....@foo.bar.com is returned in certain types of DNS record as
>the domain name fred\.bloggs.foo.bar.com.
[snip to keep quoted text down]
>Since 1035 and 1850
1850? What's the OSPF2 MIB got to do with this issue?
>both came from people who have designed much of the
>core functionality of the Net, who were both at ISI at the times the
>RFCs were written and that ISI looks after the assigned numbers RFC for
>IANA, it's reasonable to conclude that Postel wrote from a position
>of knowning that mailboxes are domain names as far as DNS is concerned.
I think RFC1035 was Paul Mockapetris, not Postel.
>If any mistake is being made it is by those who do not understand the
>Domain Name System well enough to know that maiboxes *are* domain names.
This is a red herring. Just because mailboxes can appear in some RRs,
it doesn't follow that there's a requirement for *all* mail addresses
to follow the same rules as domain names as applied to hosts. For
example, underscores are illegal in domain names[1] but legal in RFC822
addr-specs (though they can be a nuisance when relaying between 822 and
X.400!). Also, labels in the DNS must be 63 octets or less, whereas
I'm not aware of any such limit on local-part in RFC822.
[1] Though this is another bone of contention itself!
Roland Perry
In article <33c8dc34...@news.virgin.net>, Derek Scott
<d.s...@virgin.net> writes
>Especially when the problem is so small and the argument so pointless.
This whole matter was debated at length at the wnd of 1995, when
enterprise.net first came into use. I've looked back at what was said then,
and these three comments seem to represent the consensus view. I don't present
my own view here, I am simply reporting what took place in 1995:
Number 1:
=========
That the UK naming authorities (Nominet) take the following view, according to
<URL:http://www.nic.uk/net.uk.html> -
"The .net.uk domain is provided as an alternative to registering in
the .net domain. A section on the use of .net from RFC 1591 is given
below.
NET
This domain is intended to hold only the computers of network
providers, that is the NIC and NOC computers, the administrative
computers, and the network node computers. The customers of the
network provider would have domain names of their own (not in the NET
TLD).
The same rules will be applied to requests to register in .NET.UK.
This means customer email address should not appear in any .net.uk
subdomain.
Number 2:
=========
That to come within the RFC, the provider would have to provide domains other
than .net for the dynamic or static IP addresses allocated to customers. In
other words - even if it were admitted that a customer could have a .net email
address because it was an email address hosted on a machine which itself had a
.net domain name (and this itself is the nub of the debate), then when a
customer's computer is assigned a dynamic IP number when the user dials in,
that IP number should be from a range other than that associated with the
ISP's .net domain name.
Number 3:
=========
Finally, a comprehensive summary of the interpretation of RFC 1591 towards the
end of the thread.
From: "Paul L. Allen" <p...@sktb.demon.co.uk>
Newsgroups: uk.net
Subject: Re: .net addresses
Date: Sat, 18 Nov 1995 14:04:49 +0000
In article <48jjjt$f...@cerebus.demon.co.uk>
jm...@home.org (J.H. Man) writes:
> Paul L. Allen <p...@sktb.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
> > A computer (actually an interface) has an A record, which specifies
> > a domain name. A mail address has an MX record, which *also*
> > specifies a domain name. Now the relevant portion of the RFC:
> >
> > NET - This domain is intended to hold only the computers of network
> > providers, that is the NIC and NOC computers, the
> > administrative computers, and the network node computers. The
> > customers of the network provider would have domain names of
> > their own (not in the NET TLD).
> >
> > It is quite clear that provider's computers (actually interfaces)
> > have A records in the .net domain. The customer's records, be they
> > for computers (A records) or mail addresses (MX records) should
> > *not* be in .net.
>
> Enlightenment at last (I think)!
Good. :-)
> Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you're saying that the portion of
> RFC1591 which you quoted should be read as "NET - This domain is
> intended to hold only the [RECORDS OF] computers of network providers
> ... The [RECORDS OF THE] customers of the network provider would have
> domain names of their own (not in the NET TLD)."
Yeah, it would be a lot clearer if it was worded like that. But the person
who wrote it didn't foresee the cluelessness of certain providers.
> It took me all this time to get it, but it seems obvious now that this
> is the correct interpretation, since domains in the DNS can only hold
> records (and not machines or interfaces).
Indeed. It is fairly obvious, once you give it a little thought.
> Such records of course include MX records,
Yep, I did make that point fairly early on.
> so according to RFC1591 customers shouldn't have MX records (and there
> e-mail addresses) in the net TLD, even though such records may point to
> another record which IS in the net TLD.
Also correct. Aliasing is a very handy feature of the DNS, and allows
you to get up to all sorts of tricks.
> The remaining ambiguity in the RFC appears to me to be that this part
> of RFC1591 doesn't cover the situation where a DNS record may be
> considered to belong to both the network provider and the customers,
> e.g. the example of a POP3 server, accepting mail for both staff and
> customers of a network provider, which only has one MX record.
Hmm, I don't think it's ambiguous at all. It just isn't made sufficiently
clear. A careful reading of the RFC, together with a knowledge of how
DNS works and a little intelligence allows one to work out precisely what
the author intended. The author never expected to encounter a provider
with such a deficit in the clues department.
> I understand now that what some people have been trying to say is that
> the "tidy" way to sidestep this problem is simply to have two MX
> records in such a case, although such a solution isn't dictated by the
> RFC.
It's not explicitly there, but I think you'll agree that after careful
consideration the answer is to do as Demon, PIPEX, EUnet and JANET do,
and not as Enterprise do. After all, anybody setting up as a provider
*ought* to know enough about what they're doing to work that one out
for themselves without the RFC having to spell everything out in minute
detail.
> Paul L. Allen <p...@sktb.demon.co.uk> further wrote:
>
> > > (Presumably any .net address seen on IRC [say] may just belong to a
> > > provider's machine, which provides shell accounts to customers.)
> >
> > [...]
> >
> > As for the shell accounts, again the provider *should* make the canonical
> > name for the machine in a non-net domain so that users show up on IRC
> > as xyz.co.uk and given it an alias as xyz.net.
>
> I may be wrong, but I think this is different from the previous
> situation.
The technicalities are different, but I don't think that it sufficient
reason to absolve them from the requirements of the RFC.
> Here, we have an IRC server querying what the domain name
> of an IP address is. The record in the in-addr.arpa domain clearly
> belongs to the network provider, since it identifies the domain name
> of the interface on the computer belonging to the network provider, so
> the RFC doesn't prohibit (unlike the other situation) it pointing to a
> net TLD. A technical distinction admittedly.
First of all there's some question as to whether a shell account provider
is entitled to a .net TLD in the first place (I suspect not). But assuming
they are entitled to one, there is no reason why the canonical name for the
machine has to be in .net with an alias to .co.uk. The other way round
works just as well, and has the added advantage of satisfying RFC 1591.
--Paul
Paul L. Allen
In article <slrn5s5g78....@uhaa022.cc.rhbnc.ac.uk>
uha...@sun.rhbnc.ac.uk (Malcolm Ray) writes:
> On Tue, 08 Jul 1997 20:38:31 +0100, Peter Ceresole <pe...@cara.demon.co.uk>
> won friends and influenced people by writing:
> >Just keep your shirt on. It's the literal truth. I don't read the RFCs,
> >because they are obscure and boring and I don't need to know, but I have
> >seen them discussed and quoted at length and the particular RFC that refers
> >to the .net suffix was discussed (and the relevant section quoted in full)
> >last week in a group I take. I've expired that article now- but you can
> >find the RFC easily enough by asking somebody who knows about them at
> >Virgin. At least I presume that they know about RFCs; they need to. But
> >they don't show it much. The RFC number is, I think, 1035 or 6, but I'm not
> >sure.
Actually, he was thinking of the wrong RFC. The one that is usually
waved around is 1591 which is quite explicit that customers of ISPs should
not be given .net TLDs. However, by pure chance he's picked one that
underpins the *correct* interpretation of 1591.
> Black kitchen utensils spring to mind here. Perhaps you could make a
> *little* more effort before making so much noise about RFCs. FYI:
> RFC1035 has been *officially* obsoleted (not by clueless idiots).
Umm, it *has*? Hang on whilst I grab the latest RFC index from Demon's
mirror. Hmm, dated 7/8/1997 but that's merkin for 8th July - two days ago.
Search for 1035...
2137 PS D. Eastlake, "Secure Domain Name System Dynamic Update",
04/21/1997. (Pages=11) (Format=.txt) (Updates RFC1035)
(Obsoletes RFC1035)
Strange, it both updates and obsoletes 1035. That doesn't sound right.
Hold on some more whilst I go fetch it. Here we go:
Network Working Group D. Eastlake 3rd
Request for Comments: 2137 CyberCash, Inc.
Updates: 1035 April 1997
Category: Standards Track
Secure Domain Name System Dynamic Update
A quick skim through it reveals that this is indeed an *update* to 1035 (one
of several RFCs adding new RR types) and does *not* replace it despite what
the index says. Oooh, the index also claims 2136 obsoletes 1035 and no
mention of it being an update too. And the entry for 1035 says that 2136
and 2137 both obsolete it. Maybe 2136 is the one. Let me have a look.
Nope, it takes only a quick glance to see that 2136 and 2137 cannot
obsolete 1035 (which they both make reference to in several places as the
definitive document for certain aspects of DNS functioning) because there
are many important, large chunks of 1035 which are not replicated or
replaced in either of those two RFCs. Either the index is in error or
we're in *deep* shit...
> Not that it is relevant to this question anyway.
Actually it is *very* relevant to this question insofar as some people
argue that e-mail addresses are not themselves domain names even though they
are composed in part from a domain name and that they are therefore exempt
from 1591 requirements. 1035 shows, if you read it carefully, that those
who designed the DNS consider mailboxes to be domain names. Ones which
can be expressed in a somewhat different format outside of entries into
the DNS itself but domain names nonetheless.
You might want to look at the MINFO RR type. It is rarely used but it
takes a query on a mailbox expressed as a domain name and returns two
mailboxes expressed as domain names. The SOA record is widely used and
returns a mailbox expressed as a domain name as part of its data. The
RP record is one of the extensions to 1035 which also returns a mailbox
in domain name format as part of its data.
When you read 1035 to see how this is achieved it becomes clear that
mailboxes *are* domain names but rather special ones in that most of
them do not need to be entered into the DNS (although they could be - an
ISP could choose to enter a TXT record for employee's and/or customer's
mailboxes) and which in normal use have an alternative form of expression to
simplify the way users have to deal with them.
> RFC1796: Not All RFCs are Standards
True, but when they come from Jon Postel (who wrote 1591 and 1796) I tend
to treat them as being higher significance than I otherwise might since
Postel has been around since ARPAnet days and has had a hand in many
core Internet protocols.
RFCs are often incomplete and imperfect but they are not to be ignored
without good reason. Even the unix ftpd source which adds a response code
not listed in RFC 959 states that it was OK'd by Jon Postel over the phone.
--Paul
Derek Scott
>In article <33C145...@virgin.net>, Andy Veitch
><andrew...@virgin.net> writes
>
>today, anarchic though it seems (and is, in many respects). I doubt,
>however, that Virgin will change their tune without some indication from
>or agreement by their own clients that a change would be for the best.
>
>Regards,
>Oliver Clarke.
Having missed (thankfully) the majority of this thread, and being a
regular user on the virgin.* groups, I can say there is little or no
indication that Virgin users want to change or see any real problem.
It is sad to see Peter (Ceresole) still has nothing better to do with
his online time than to condemn entire groups of internet users
(Virgin) because their ISP itself is flouting a small, technically
insignificant entry in the holy gospel of RFC bible. To suggest other
ISP's should refuse to peer with Virgin, Enterprise, etc., simply
because their users' email addresses end in .net rather than .co.uk is
quite ridiculous in the extreme.
Will barring ISP's from usenet do the Internet any good in the long
run? The press seems to pounce with glee on any negative
aspects of Internet, and a nice big battle between ISP's would just
play into their hands - especially if it was due to .net vS .co.uk.
which your average man in the street will neither understand nor care?
I once dared to suggest in demon.* that demo.pops was badly named,
and was derided and flamed for it by Peter & Co. I notice demon.pops
is no longer used though? Perhaps the simplest answer here would
be to tear out the page referring to .net usage from the RFC bible and
get on with discussing solving some of the more dangerous evils of the
internet
- like a solution to Spam for instance? Stop peering with host ISP's?
Cheers,
Derek
Malcolm Ray
On Wed, 9 Jul 1997 23:38:30 +0100, Paul L. Allen <p...@sktb.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>In article <slrn5s6q7e....@uhaa022.cc.rhbnc.ac.uk>
> uha...@sun.rhbnc.ac.uk (Malcolm Ray) writes:
>> I haven't seen anyone claim that: all the "pro .net" arguments I've
>> seen have claimed that it's *permitted*, not that it's *required*.
>
>Nope, some have claimed (notably Enterprise management) that because
>the relay is in .net then it is technically impossible to give customers
>addresses which are in .co.uk or .com. They got laughed at...
Ah, Enterprise. That doesn't surprise me. Are they still unresponsive to
complaints about net abuse? That's something far more harmful to the
net.
[snip]
>> >Domain Name System well enough to know that maiboxes *are* domain names.
>>
>> This is a red herring. Just because mailboxes can appear in some RRs,
>> it doesn't follow that there's a requirement for *all* mail addresses
>> to follow the same rules as domain names as applied to hosts.
>
>It's not a red herring at all. Mailboxes *are* domain names and 1035
>explicitly considers them to be so. Some of the wording in 1035 appears
>strange and confusing until you realize that mailboxes really are domain
>names. They do have other representations in normal use but they are still
>domain names whether entered into the DNS or not and should follow the same
>rules for domain names that hosts and domains do (with some special-case
>handling allowed for mailbox local parts).
I think Ian Batten answered this better than I can (though that won't
stop me adding my 2p-worth!)
>
>> For example, underscores are illegal in domain names[1] but legal in RFC822
>> addr-specs (though they can be a nuisance when relaying between 822 and
>> X.400!).
>
>See the escaping conventions of 1035. Just as a . in a local part is
>represented as \. when it appears in a domain name, an underscore would
>be \137.
Sorry, you've misunderstood the purpose of backslash escaping in the DNS.
Quoting RFC1035:
\X where X is any character other than a digit (0-9), is
used to quote that character so that its special meaning
does not apply. For example, "\." can be used to place
a dot character in a label.
However, an underscore has no "special meaning". Try this: create three
domain names, something like this:
test\.1 IN TXT "backslash dot"
test\_2 IN TXT "backslash underscore"
test_3 IN TXT "bare underscore"
Then look them up, and look at the octets in the reply. You'll see that,
as desired, there is a dot in the first label of the first of these two
names. There's no backslash there, though: the backslash simply served
to tell the DNS server which loaded the zone data that the dot is part
of the label. Similarly, you'll see that the first label of the second
name contains an underscore, without a backslash. The first label of the
third name will be the same (except for the different last character).
The second and third names are both illegal, and both will cause modern
versions of BIND (and some resolvers) to complain, unless pacified.
>> Also, labels in the DNS must be 63 octets or less, whereas I'm not aware
>> of any such limit on local-part in RFC822.
>
>Not in 822, no. However, if you look in 821:
[snip - RFC821 limits user names to 64 chars]
>Ummm, a slight mismatch there, and one which could potentially cause
>problems, but it looks to me like the intention was there to permit
>mailboxes to be expressed as domain names but because 821 predated 1035 and
>the clarification of some aspects of DNS labels somebody got it slightly
>wrong. OTOH it could just be a coincidence.
OTOH it could just be that you're wrong to insist that all mailbox
names are domain names. Let's look at where mailbox names appear in
the DNS in current practice. AFAICS, they appear in two places: in SOA
and (rarer) RP RRs. In most cases, the mail addresses listed will be
aliases (e.g. 'hostmaster'), so there will be no problem making them
DNS-compliant. There is *no* requirement for all valid mailbox names
to be valid DNS names, since they are never looked up in the DNS. The
MB, MG, MR, and MINFO RRs were experimental (a failed experiment,
ISTM).
>Of course, as I've just been reminded by spotting a recap of previous
>discussions, an MX for customer-node.isp.net is an entry in the DNS for
>a customer which is in the net TLD and is quite incorrect even if you
>wish to ignore 1035 saying that mailboxes are domain names. Adding that
>MX record gives the customer a domain name entry (for a host, not a mailbox)
>which is in the net TLD and goes against 1591.
We agree on that. Are Virgin doing that? I thought not, at least for
dialup customers.
A supporter of what Virgin are doing can legitimately say "ok, I agree
that RFC1591 says that customers shouldn't have domain names in .net,
though it's only informational. Show me where Virgin have created
such domain names". You, if I've understood correctly, say "because
us...@virgin.net can be encoded in the DNS as user.virgin.net, it *is*
a domain name, and even though it *isn't* in the DNS, it *could* be,
so it's illegal". It's a novel argument, but I'm not convinced.
However, it does appear that Virgin's dialup customers get IP addresses
which resolve to names in .net (check some of the NNTP-Posting-Host
headers in this thread). This is a much clearer violation of RFC1591.
Ian G Batten
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
In article <h2kWROAm...@pigpen.demon.co.uk>,
Oliver Clarke <oli...@pigpen.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> >Is it simply because they have grown too big too fast and are in
> >danger of stealing large fractions of demon's (and other UK ISP')
> >subscriber base?
>
> If Demon themselves were arguing the point in here, you might be right.
However, there's a minority of demon's customers who seem to think they
have a duty to defend demon and attack their competitors. One suspects
they're quite keen on Acorn as well.
ian
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John Gorst
On Mon, 7 Jul 1997 01:29:24 +0100, Newsm...@pwomar.demon.co.uk (Paul
Womar) wrote:
>The guidelines expressly state that a .net address is NOT for customers,
>can't your ISP even read? It also means that people with clues wont go
>near them or peer with them eg LINX.
Does it?? Are you sure??
"NET - This domain is intended to hold only the computers of network
providers, that is the NIC and NOC computers, the
administrative computers, and the network node computers. The
customers of the network provider would have domain names of
their own (not in the NET TLD)."
I agree that Virgin should use the co.uk domain to avoid confusion with
staff, but RFC says the .net domain is to hold the computers of the ISP.
Which it does. When mail is delivered to virgin.net it is delivered to
VIRGIN's computer, not the customers computer.
--
JG
j.g...@virgin.net
http://jgorst.home.ml.org
PGP key available on request
--
John Gorst
On Mon, 07 Jul 97 10:16:19 GMT, ma...@ukonline.co.uk (Matt Kelland) wrote:
>>3. Speed
>Speed of what? News/mail/connections/UK WWW/US WWW?
That annoys me that when people say speed of WWW meaning the speed of the
external bandwidth - people must think that the net revolves around the
web.
MCraddock
On Wed, 09 Jul 1997 00:32:49 GMT, d.s...@virgin.net (Derek Scott)
wrote:
>Perhaps the simplest answer here would
>be to tear out the page referring to .net usage from the RFC bible and
>get on with discussing solving some of the more dangerous evils of the
>internet
>
>- like a solution to Spam for instance? Stop peering with host ISP's?
>
>
>
>Cheers,
>Derek
At last someone with a bit of sanity.
--
M Craddock
Paul L. Allen
In article <5q20hf$9ku$1...@ftel.ftel.co.uk>
Ian G Batten <I.G.B...@batten.eu.org> writes:
> In article <Dn9UM...@sktb.demon.co.uk>,
> Paul L. Allen <p...@sktb.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> > If you had bothered with one particular RFC that talks about DNS (namely
> > 1035) you would find that it applies to the left-hand side too.
>
> Only when the records are actually put into the DNS.
Ah, the quantum-mechanical explanation. So far the justifications we've
seen are:
1) Technically impossible to give customers .co.uk/.com e-mail addresses
if the server is in .net (Enterprise - bwahahaha). We can dispose of
this one without further argument.
2) Mail domains and ordinary domains are somehow decoupled (Virgin in
private, and amusing, e-mail to anyone who posts to this sort of thread
because Virgin would be embarrassed to post it in public). Let's examine
this one. You can have a zone which gives a company the isp.net domain with
full control over it and its sub-domains. The isp.net domain is rather
ethereal in that it doesn't necessarily correspond to a physical machine but
it is still a domain name. The isp can put up several machines like
news.isp.net and these are names of hosts but they are still domain names.
However as soon as you have an e-mail address like newsm...@news.isp.net
it is a PURE COINCIDENCE and the news.isp.net portion is nothing whatsoever
to do with domain names at all.
Hmmm, a little thought experiment. If mailbox domains are entirely
unconnected with real domains then isp could offer us...@isp.up-yours to
customers, couldn't they? Well, no. Because to look up an MX record
for isp.up-yours or even an A record if there were no MX record they would
need to persuade the root nameservers to add a new TLD of up-yours. So
this argument, Mr Virgin Technical Person, is a load of crap.
3) A mailbox isn't a domain it's just the right-hand-side that is (you).
No, officer, I'm not underage and driving this car without license, MOT
or insurance, because, you see, it's TOWING A CARAVAN. See - from where
you're stood the right-hand-side is a car, it's true, but the left-hand-
side is a caravan. So the whole assemblage is not a car and the rules
don't apply.
I don't buy it.
4) Quantum Domain Name System (you). Yes you can put mailboxes in the
DNS but they're not domain names unless you do even though 1035 says
they are. Not so much the Copenhagen interpretation as the east-end
interpretation. I can just see Frank Butcher looking around suspiciously
before saying: "Is it a mailbox or is it a domain? Well, that all depends,
squire. Sometimes it is and sometimes it isn't. Depends who's asking
and how much they're willing to pay. Tell you what, squire, slip me a
monkey and I'll make it whatever you want."
Let's try the Frank Butcher's cat thought experiment. So if isp decides to
create a text record for rando...@isp.net, entered into the DNS as
random\.user.isp.net as per 1035 only then (according to you) is it a
domain name. Is this like losing virginity though? Is it permanent even if
the record is later withdrawn or does it heal up? And this quantum
collapsing of the DNS function - does it apply to just that mailbox or does
it collapse the intederminacy of all the other mailboxes of users at that
ISP?
> Sure, any address that I want to put in as the RNAME in an SOA has to
> conform. But I see plenty of email addresses with underscores in them,
> and the net.cops don't jump up and down on that.
Read 1035 again. There are a couple of contradictions but it is quite
clear from the examples that local parts of mailboxes are freed from
the restrictions which apply to domain names in general when they are
entered into the DNS.
> Until an email address needs to go into the DNS, it doesn't need to
> conform to the (more restrictive) syntax.
They don't need to conform to a more restrictive syntax at all. The \X
(where X is a character with special meaning such as " or .) and \DDD where
DDD is a decimal representation of an octet (not octal as I mis-remembered
in a different post) are *said* to apply only to <character-string>.
Yet, later on, we see \. used in an example in of mailbox encoding so it
is quite clear that the authors intended the local part of mailbox
encoding not to be subject to the restrictions of domain names used
purely for domains and hosts. It even states, explicitly:
Thus the mailbox HOSTM...@SRI-NIC.ARPA is mapped into the domain name
HOSTMASTER.SRI-NIC.ARPA. If the <local-part> contains dots or other
special characters, its representation in a master file will require the
use of backslash quoting to ensure that the domain name is properly
encoded. For example, the mailbox Action....@ISI.EDU would be
represented as Action\.domains.ISI.EDU.
Backslash quoting includes the \DDD form which allows any 822 local
part to be encoded (apart from the fact that a DNS label is 63 chars
max and an unencoded 822 local part is 64 chars max).
> I can't think of any standard, widely used use for an email address as a
> field in an RR.
SOAs frequently contain such. RP is not widely used yet but also contains
such.
> Ian_G_...@ftel.co.uk is valid 822, but Ian_G_Batten.ftel.co.uk is
> invalid 1035
Not in the least. It's \073an\095\071\095\066atten.ftel.co.uk.
> and therefore, by your logic, an illegal email address.
Quite legal. 1035 states that 822 local parts are the preferred syntax
for mailbox encoding.
> rfc1035:
>
> <domain> ::= <subdomain> | " "
[etc]
Yep, you've discovered that 1035 (in common with many RFCs) has some
inconsistencies. In particular the syntax for domain is given without
reference to mailbox encoding. Nevertheless it's quite easy to spot what
the real intention was.
> There's also the matter that the DNS is case insensitive, and yet 822
> makes it quite explicit that the localpart may be case sensitive.
Hint: \065 <> a.
> If you're claiming that DNS rules apply to all email addresses,
> i...@ftel.co.uk and I...@ftel.co.uk would be equivalent, because
> conforming DNS implementations may alter case freely (for example,
> Cisco's resolver upcases all names).
Well, that's another case where somebody has not read the spec in full.
It happens and sooner or later means that things that should have been
possible have to be abandoned. Rather like Doom hijacking the MDQS port.
That doesn't negate the fact that 1035 *intended* mailboxes to be entered
into the DNS, as indeed does 1183.
All of which was a pleasant diversion from what was in Jon Postel's
mind when he wrote that customers should not have domains in the net
TLD. Given that Virgin's private e-mail had something to the effect that
RIPE stated their policy was that ISPs should not give .net *e-mail*
addresses to customers but that RIPE did not police this so Virgin decided
they could do as they please I'd say that indicates what was in Postel's
mind (and also Virgin's)...
Damn, I do with Virgin would post their attempted defense in public so
everyone could have as big a laugh as I did...
--Paul
Paul L. Allen
In article <5q2v7o$gll$1...@ftel.ftel.co.uk>
Ian G Batten <I.G.B...@batten.eu.org> writes:
> In article <h2kWROAm...@pigpen.demon.co.uk>,
> Oliver Clarke <oli...@pigpen.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> > If Demon themselves were arguing the point in here, you might be right.
>
> However, there's a minority of demon's customers who seem to think they
> have a duty to defend demon
Those are few and far between these days. I am certainly not one of them.
> and attack their competitors.
Nope, just people who go against the RFCs. Like running a facility for
checking mail by telnetting to a server on port 666 which is assigned to
other purposes. Whilst it is unlikely to cause any great problem to the
net at large it does go against an Internet standard and leaves them open
to a particularly nasty denial of service attack only possible because
another company ignored the same RFC.
> One suspects they're quite keen on Acorn as well.
I am, even though I can't play Doom on it. Which is a pity because I
know of a really great Doom server that everyone should try because it
has loads more features than any other Doom server on the planet.
--Paul (killing 3 birds with one stone and feeling rather happy)
Paul L. Allen
In article <33df2527...@news.virgin.net>
d.s...@virgin.net (Derek Scott) writes:
> On Thu, 10 Jul 1997 08:43:43 +0100, Thomas Lee <t...@psp.co.uk> wrote:
> Back to a more on-topic subject though, here is a recent quote from
> Virgin's support manager, Steve Bonner.
It's rude to quote e-mail so I hope he posted this to a Virgin support
group. If not you've been a naughty boy.
> The rules for allocation of Domain Names under the top level domain
> are set by IANA and InterNIC. These rules were placed in an RFC so that
> they were easy to find, However the status of the RFC is 'Informational'
> this means they do not form part of the standards track for the Internet
> and therefore however you interpret the RFC it does not form part of
> STD0001 so nobody is going to stop peering with us over this.
We may be wrong but not wrong enough to get into deep shit.
> Virgin Net believe that RFC1591
> (ftp://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/rfc/rfc1591.txt)
> applies to domain names, and we do not offer domain name services to
> our users.
No MX records so that mail can reach them, then. In fact no DNS servers
at all. How on earth do the poor dears manage to connect to anything?
Or maybe this was a bit of BBB gibberish that was not meant to be seen
by anyone but Virgin customers.
> I am happy to confirm that the computers that serve virgin.net
> mail are ours.
Mail destined for customers where the domain name portion of the e-mail
address is in the .net TLD even if you are rich enough to own your own
computers.
> We believe we are following the letter of this RFC and indeed Virgin
> always does its upmost to follow the spirit of RFCs not only for our
> own users, but also for the good of the internet as a whole.
You gotta love the way he squirms. Virgin always does its utmost to follow
the spirit of RFCs but in the case of 1591 they only believe they are
following it to the letter. Even Bonner knows that he shouldn't be doing
it but if he can claim to be following it to the letter (but he refuses to
say that he also believes he's adhering to the spirit of the RFC). This
sentence says it all about what Mr Bonner *really* thinks of the situation.
> I do however contact those involved by email to explain the situation to
> them,
Let me give you a warning, Mr Bonner. Next time you mail me on this one, I
shall take it as your implicit permission for me to quote it here and poke
holes in your weak arguments. The reason you copy the same mail to all
participants is that those without technical knowledge won't know where
you're pulling the wool over their eyes and those with the technical
knowledge know it breaches netiquette to quote mail. Hence this statement -
if you choose to respond to me by e-mail I shall take that as your implicit
permission for me to do as I have stated.
> The only possible valid complaint is that it is difficult to tell
> staff from users, to this end all staff use accounts of the form
> na...@location.virgin.net for official business,
Gosh, what a brilliant idea!!!!! A way of telling staff from users. Hmm,
how shall we do that? Should we put staff in .net and users in .co.uk or
.com, thereby following a widely-adopted convention specified in RFCs?
No, let's make staff na...@location.virgin.net - something that nobody
outside of Virgin could guess as having that significance unless they
were told.
What a *good* idea. Top marks. Very innovative. For your next trick,
I'd like you to design me a wheel.
> leaving users with the simpler and quicker to type addresses of the form
> firstname...@virgin.net.
Ah well, that's a hell of a lot simpler an quicker to type than
firstname...@virgin.com. Oh, it's not. But it might be a few letters
shorter than whatever you'd have had to use because other bits of Virgin
already had virgin.com and virgin.co.uk. And, after all, considering the
usual level of intelligence displayed by your customers, cutting down on the
typing is obviously a good idea.
Tell, me, Mr Bonner, do you sleep well at nights after you come up with weak
justifications like this?
--Paul
Paul L. Allen
In article <33cd1bb6...@news.virgin.net>
d.s...@virgin.net (Derek Scott) writes:
> On Thu, 10 Jul 1997 10:13:46 +0100, Roland Perry <rol...@perry.co.uk>
> wrote:
>
> >In article <33ccd29c...@news.virgin.net>, Derek Scott
> ><d.s...@virgin.net> writes
> >>However, enterprise's use of .net user addresses
> >>was obviously not resolved at that time, and usenet has not broken
> >>down, so why the sudden overwhelming wave of hatred against Virgin.
> >
> >Virgin is simply the next noticeable ISP to come along and issue .net
> >addresses to customers. Those who regard this as "wrong" have not
> >changed their minds in the last 18 months.
>
> No, I understand that concept. ;)
>
> What I was asking though was what, if anything, came out of the
> argument that obviously took place when other ISP's did the same
> thing?
Many people formed the opinion that Enterprise were clueless for giving .net
addresses to customers, especially after some of the justifications they
gave for doing so.
Of course, many argued that it was not a true indicator of cluelessness at
all. And this second faction were subsequently proved right when vast
quantities of spam and UCE *didn't* pour forth in an unstoppable stream from
Enterprise machines. They were proved right again when Enterprise *did*
keep logs and *didn't* have them hacked into and so could immediately trace
the culprit. They were proved right again when Enterprise said the problem
had been sorted and it *didn't* recur the next week.
Ooops, that's my memory playing up again. Actually Enterprise did prove
themselves to be totally incompetent. I'm not sure if their logs were
hacked (incompetent at security) or they didn't keep any in the first place
(just generally incompetent). I do know that many here weren't in the least
surprised that Enterprise were vulnerable to this attack, and that lack of
surprise was a result of Enterprise's behaviour over .net addresses.
--Paul
Paul L. Allen
In article <33c5e708...@223.103.5.35>
j.g...@virgin.net (John Gorst) writes:
However, it does not say that `The *computers* of customers...' but that
`The *customers*...' So I presume you can tell me an e-mail address for
your customers that does not make use of the net TLD.
Or are you just another customer? Virgin technical people usually prefer
not to pursue this type of thread in public because their arguments are
so shaky. Believe it or not, one of their arguments was that when they
discussed it with RIPE that RIPE told them that ISPs should not hand out
.net *e-mail addresses* to customers but that RIPE did not police this
so they concluded it was OK to go ahead.
I *wish* Virgin's technical people would post this sort of garbage in public
so everyone could have a laugh.
--Paul
Simon Pleasants
On Tue, 8 Jul 97 13:09:27 BST, cl...@demon.net wrote:
>In article <ef232...@lyta.fluff.org>, Ben Dooks <b...@fluff.org> wrote:
>>> Very few ISPs make any profit at all on dial-up,
>> I'm just wondering if Demon do.
>
>Our accounts (like those of any limited company) are available at Companies
>House. However, unlike any other ISP I am aware of, we have published them
>on our web site.
Nice. Does this mean anyone can see them, or just people with
permission of some sort? I refer, of course, to Companies House.
Obviously anyone can read the web site.
Alternatively, is there anywhere that people can get information such
as the number of dial accounts belonging certain ISP's?
--
Simon Pleasants <sim...@ndirect.co.uk | www.ndirect.co.uk/ples>
Web Designer & Presenter, Mon - Fri, 2 - 4pm 107.1 FM The River
-- "Keep a dream in your pocket.... never let it fade away!" --
Stuart Millington
>On Tue, 8 Jul 97 13:09:27 BST, cl...@demon.net wrote:
>
>>Our accounts (like those of any limited company) are available at Companies
>>House. However, unlike any other ISP I am aware of, we have published them
>>on our web site.
>
>Nice. Does this mean anyone can see them, or just people with
>permission of some sort? I refer, of course, to Companies House.
>Obviously anyone can read the web site.
>
The accounts filled at Companies House are available to anyone.
There is however, a fee - I think, can't remember how much.
--
---------------------------------------------------------------------
- Stuart Millington -
- ph...@wormhole.demon.co.uk ph...@wormhole.ndirect.co.uk -
- http://www.wormhole.demon.co.uk http://www.wormhole.ndirect.co.uk -
Stuart Millington
>Let me give you a warning, Mr Bonner. Next time you mail me on this one, I
>shall take it as your implicit permission for me to quote it here and poke
>holes in your weak arguments. The reason you copy the same mail to all
>participants is that those without technical knowledge won't know where
>you're pulling the wool over their eyes and those with the technical
>knowledge know it breaches netiquette to quote mail. Hence this statement -
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
The only reason I haven't posted the crap he sent me.
Mike Mann
In article <DnQxg...@sktb.demon.co.uk>, "Paul L. Allen"
<p...@sktb.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>Ooops, that's my memory playing up again. Actually Enterprise did prove
>themselves to be totally incompetent. I'm not sure if their logs were
>hacked (incompetent at security) or they didn't keep any in the first place
>(just generally incompetent). I do know that many here weren't in the least
>surprised that Enterprise were vulnerable to this attack, and that lack of
>surprise was a result of Enterprise's behaviour over .net addresses.
Don't I recollect a gentleman from BTNet, connectivity supplier to
Enterprise, promising in this newsgroup to investigate Enterprise's
inability to identify their spammer and to report back to this
newsgroup?
Perhaps my memory is playing up too, but I have no recollection of
that promise being kept.
Regards, Mike.
--
Home: mi...@kempston.demon.co.uk | mi...@mirage.co.uk
Also: kemp...@netcomuk.co.uk
PGP 2.6.2i public key available by mail from p...@kempston.demon.co.uk
Richard Weller
>> On Sun, 06 Jul 1997 12:47:52 +0100, pe...@cara.demon.co.uk (Peter =3D
>> Ceresole) wrote:
>>=20
>> <a boring load of shite.>
>
>Hmm... great summing up...
The truth hurts.
>> Who cares weather email address end with .net? Is it THAT =
important?=3D20
>
>It is to us.
Yes it is to all net nerds out there
>> Oh on its the end of the world! And all because Virgin email address =
end =3D
>> with .net.
>
>Its not the end of the world, its just an excuse to have a good =
technical
>discussion.
Really? A boring one to me that has been covered before.
>> I bet your only jeaious you don't have address in ending in .net =
anyway.
>
>I don't want a .net address. I've already got fluff.org.
>
>> Why do the FFC rules say you are not surpose to have an address ending=
in=3D
>> .net?
>
>You answer the question you pose in the next (whatever you want to call =
it)
Ok.
>> I want a real good reason not one of your crumby "thats what staff are=
=3D
>> surpose to have" answers.
>
>That is a jolly good answer to me. Its in the RFC y'know.
Yeah. Virgin's ops manger has given us why we are allowed .net address. =
And from what
i make out its not against the rules and is allowed. So there.
>> I know this posting is in quoted printable/mime but i don't care.
>>=20
>> =3D46lame me if you like i couldn't give a t*ss.=3D20
>
>Pitty.
No not really. You should get a decent news reader.
>> Richard Weller
>
>Another brilliant reason why bigfoot.com has just entered my killfile.
What sad excuse.
Ben Dooks, b...@fluff.org \
Not Ben Dorks?
--
Richard Weller
mailto:richard...@bigfoot.com
mailto:rich...@emarkt.com
http://richardw.home.ml.org
ICQ UIN: 1688023
PGP Key Available On Request
John Gorst
On Wed, 09 Jul 1997 21:45:42 GMT, richard...@bigfoot.com (Richard
Weller) wrote:
>>Mind you, I do have to say that Virgin must be running their news
>>server on lighter fluid, seeing as it only works once a week :-))
>
>Hamster please. It has a Hamster. ok?
Which is currently hibernating (in the summer?!?!?), and can only be
bothered to come out once a week.
John Gorst
On Thu, 10 Jul 1997 23:06:40 +0100, "Paul L. Allen" <p...@sktb.demon.co.uk>
wrote:
>However, it does not say that `The *computers* of customers...' but that
>`The *customers*...' So I presume you can tell me an e-mail address for
>your customers that does not make use of the net TLD.
I think this particular RFC is open to a lot of interpretation, and I think
should be rewritten so the intended meaning of whoever wrote it becomes
apparent.
Personally I think that .net should be reserved for staff and .co.uk for
customers for recognition purposes. I do not believe that the RFC
guidelines do say that .net e-mail addresses can not be given to customers.
>Or are you just another customer? Virgin technical people usually prefer
>not to pursue this type of thread in public because their arguments are
>so shaky. Believe it or not, one of their arguments was that when they
>discussed it with RIPE that RIPE told them that ISPs should not hand out
>.net *e-mail addresses* to customers but that RIPE did not police this
>so they concluded it was OK to go ahead.
I am just another customer, FYI anyone employee of Virgin.Net will have the
e-mail address na...@location.virgin.net
Would you like to share the e-mail address of the person who told you about
the consultation with RIPE regarding .net e-mail addresses. A copy of the
e-mail would also be nice.
>I *wish* Virgin's technical people would post this sort of garbage in public
>so everyone could have a laugh.
Well you can post it for them - and include the full headers of the e-mail
as well. I have only seen one official line from virgin regarding this
matter and that is from Stephen Bonner, and I believe that he has replied
by e-mail to everyone who has brought up the subject in this newsgroup. and
those who have e-mailed him.
Peter Ceresole
In article <33cc5494...@223.103.5.35>,
j.g...@virgin.net (John Gorst) wrote:
>>I *wish* Virgin's technical people would post this sort of garbage in public
>>so everyone could have a laugh.
>
>Well you can post it for them - and include the full headers of the e-mail
>as well.
I got the same email from Stephen Bonner <ste...@london.virgin.net>. It's
not kosher to post it without permission, but basically it said that
INTERNIC had mailed them and said that they had stopped reviewing
applications for the NET domain. They were still screening applications for
.edu and .gov and .tld applications but everything else was "self
policing".
Virgin's interpretation was that this made it okay to give all their users
.net addresses. I think that that interpretation is due more to their wish
to do it, than to anything else. To me the INTERNIC mail was saying that
they had given up on a hopeless situation. So then Virgin jumped in with
both feet to make it worse.
--
Peter
Stuart Millington
On Sat, 12 Jul 1997 14:04:42 +0100, pe...@cara.demon.co.uk (Peter
Ceresole) wrote:
>Virgin's manager has given you his opinion and their interpretation of what
>the RFC says and what INTERNIC said to them (Virgin). He's just a bozo- he
>certainly doesn't know any better than the the admins of other, proper ISPs
>who have been following the RFC recommendation for perfectly good reasons.
>His opinion is wrong.
He may know better. But I doubt he is in a position where he can
publicly admit Virgin totally and utterly screwed up. Therefor he
can't register a real domain name and solve this problem. Maybe Mr.
Branson would like to comment on his company's incompetency (and do
something about it ? :-))
cl...@demon.net
In article <stan-ya02408000R...@nntp.netcomuk.co.uk>,
Stan The Man <st...@netcomuk.co.uk> wrote:
> I have been a customer of several of the providers mentioned in this thread
> and IMHO, the only one of the ones I have used that knows how to run a
> railway is Netcom.
As far as I know, the only UK ISP that runs a railway *is* Virgin.
[Though I suspect that Demon management could do a better job than
Stagecoach have been managing recently.]
--
Clive D.W. Feather | Work: <cl...@demon.net> | Tel: +44 181 371 1138
Director of | Home: <cl...@davros.org> | Fax: +44 181 371 1037
Software Development |
Demon Internet Ltd. |
Paul L. Allen
In article <33cc5494...@223.103.5.35>
j.g...@virgin.net (John Gorst) writes:
> On Thu, 10 Jul 1997 23:06:40 +0100, "Paul L. Allen" <p...@sktb.demon.co.uk>
> wrote:
>
>
> >However, it does not say that `The *computers* of customers...' but that
> >`The *customers*...' So I presume you can tell me an e-mail address for
> >your customers that does not make use of the net TLD.
>
> I think this particular RFC is open to a lot of interpretation, and I think
> should be rewritten so the intended meaning of whoever wrote it becomes
> apparent.
That would be a very good idea.
> Personally I think that .net should be reserved for staff and .co.uk for
> customers for recognition purposes. I do not believe that the RFC
> guidelines do say that .net e-mail addresses can not be given to customers.
As you say, there is some ambiguity. However, I do not see how you can
achieve your stated intention of using .net and .co.uk (or .com) to
distinguish between staff and customers if customers get .net e-mail
addresses.
> >Or are you just another customer? Virgin technical people usually prefer
> >not to pursue this type of thread in public because their arguments are
> >so shaky. Believe it or not, one of their arguments was that when they
> >discussed it with RIPE that RIPE told them that ISPs should not hand out
> >.net *e-mail addresses* to customers but that RIPE did not police this
> >so they concluded it was OK to go ahead.
>
> I am just another customer, FYI anyone employee of Virgin.Net will have the
> e-mail address na...@location.virgin.net
Ah well, I must note that down in my big book of how clueless ISPs
come up with a distinction between staff and customer e-mail addresses
after they've given customers .net e-mail addresses. It's a rather large
book because every ISP who gives .net e-mail addresses to customers
has a different way of doing this (if they do it at all).
The book would have been much shorter if these ISPs had not given .net
e-mail addresses to customers.
> Would you like to share the e-mail address of the person who told you about
> the consultation with RIPE regarding .net e-mail addresses. A copy of the
> e-mail would also be nice.
That was my faulty memory playing me up. It was Internic, not RIPE.
And the mail only quoted Internic saying that the original purpose of
the domain has become diluted and they no longer police it.
> >I *wish* Virgin's technical people would post this sort of garbage in public
> >so everyone could have a laugh.
>
> Well you can post it for them - and include the full headers of the e-mail
> as well.
Yes, I can. But I am fully aware of various netiquette documentation
that you appear not to be. This documentation is even less binding on
people than informational RFCs, yet I choose to follow it. You don't
quote mail in public without permission. Apart from being a breach of
netiquette it is also a breach of copyright (a civil tort, should the
author choose to persue it).
> I have only seen one official line from virgin regarding this matter and
> that is from Stephen Bonner, and I believe that he has replied by e-mail
> to everyone who has brought up the subject in this newsgroup. and those
> who have e-mailed him.
And the general result, as he no doubt wanted, is that those virgin users
without much technical knowledge have the wool pulled over their eyes and
post here for him (with arguments along the lines of `we're right so
yah boo and sucks to you') whilst those with technical knowledge spot the
holes in his arguments and the weasel words but cannot quote it here.
--Paul
Gareth Y
> In article <stan-ya02408000R...@nntp.netcomuk.co.uk>,
> Stan The Man <st...@netcomuk.co.uk> wrote:
>> I have been a customer of several of the providers mentioned in this threa
>> railway is Netcom.
> As far as I know, the only UK ISP that runs a railway *is* Virgin.
> [Though I suspect that Demon management could do a better job than
> Stagecoach have been managing recently.]
Huge *GROAN*. :)
--
_ _
|_|_ |_| Connecting via NETCOM Internet Ltd on an Amiga 1200 030 6Mb RAM.
_ |_|_ IRC:Dr_NilesC After the neurotic on the sitcom Frasier
|_| _|_| My PGP public key is available upon request.
|_| Gareth Y <gar...@netcomuk.co.uk> - Generally found on Undernet
A horse walks into a bar - the barman asks: "Why the long face?"
USENet Kill file:
ara!m...@ix.netcom.com Also anything with "ARAM!I" in the posting
#?geocities#? Also on e-mail Killfile
#?hotmail#? Also on e-mail Killfile
Gareth Y
> On Sat, 12 Jul 1997 03:27:04 +0100, Newsm...@pwomar.demon.co.uk
> (Paul Womar) wrote:
> This apparently (according to a post by M.Muir) is what always happens
> after a news server upgrade at demon - excepting the time a server
> fell through a weak floor structure. <G>
Did this /actually/ happen? LOL. I can just picture this "Tom and Jerry"
style cartoon, as the news server falls through the floor and hits Tom on the
head..
John F Hall
In article <86874394...@office.demon.net>, <cl...@demon.net> wrote:
>This isn't something that people put in their statutory accounts, in
>general. Why not just ask them ? We currently have about 110,000, if I am
>remembering correctly.
>
>Of course, you may have trouble checking whether ISPs are lying to you or
>not. I believe you can verify ours by doing a zone transfer of the DNS.
If you're patient. Allow time for a 6MB transfer. ;-)
--
John F Hall
Peter Ceresole
In article <33d51732...@news.virgin.net>,
richard...@bigfoot.com (Richard Weller) wrote:
>Well it better to be at Virgin then an ISP where Net Nerds live eh?
>
>So at least you don't get called a Net Nerd don't you think?
What is all this?
Virgin have cocked up their email addresses. It reflect on their users to
an extent. But just because a few users on a clueful ISP do know what's
what doesn't mean that the other 100,000 plus of them have anything to
contend with except a glow of quiet pride.
--
Peter
Richard Weller
Well it better to be at Virgin then an ISP where Net Nerds live eh?
So at least you don't get called a Net Nerd don't you think?
>In article <5q82qt$5rh$1...@sweep.rossfell.co.uk>, Rick Payne
><ri...@sweep.rossfell.co.uk> writes
>>I'd not like to be in his shoes. It does seem an incredibly clueless
>>thing for Virgin to do.
>
>Yup.
>
>It's the clueless virgin users I feel sorry for - them that know no
>better.
John Gorst
On Sat, 12 Jul 1997 21:00:59 +0100, "Paul L. Allen" <p...@sktb.demon.co.uk>
wrote:
>> Personally I think that .net should be reserved for staff and .co.uk for
>> customers for recognition purposes. I do not believe that the RFC
>> guidelines do say that .net e-mail addresses can not be given to customers.
>
>As you say, there is some ambiguity. However, I do not see how you can
>achieve your stated intention of using .net and .co.uk (or .com) to
>distinguish between staff and customers if customers get .net e-mail
>addresses.
I didn't make my self clear. What I meant is that the RFC does not state
that customers should not have .net adresses , but I agree with the
argument for customers not having .net addresses.
cl...@demon.net
In article <1020.7133...@netcomuk.co.uk>,
Gareth Y <gar...@netcomuk.co.uk> wrote:
>> As far as I know, the only UK ISP that runs a railway *is* Virgin.
>> [Though I suspect that Demon management could do a better job than
>> Stagecoach have been managing recently.]
> Huge *GROAN*. :)
<snide grin>
[I live in WAGN territory.]
Matt Kelland
In article <33d0995b...@news1.theplanet.net>, b...@orla.demon.co.uk wrote:
>No but if you are a virgin it follows that you are more likely to be
>an onanist.
Common misconceptions (pun intended): the sin of Onan = masturbation.
Actually (read your Bible) Onan used the withdrawal method.
"And Judah said unto Onan, Go in unto thy brother's wife, and marry her, and
raise up seed to thy brother.
"And Onan knew that the seed should not be his; and it came to pass, when he
went in unto his brother's wife, that he spilled it on the ground, lest that
he should give seed to his brother." Gen:38:8-9
Therefore a virgin can't be an onanist, by definition :-)
Matt Kelland
(Just because I work for someone for 45 hours a week
doesn't mean I represent them for the other 123 hours.)
Peter Ceresole
In article <33c964dc...@news.virgin.net>,
blac...@geocities.com (Blade-Runner) wrote:
>Couldn't there be just a whiff of sour grapes here?
Not the tiniest bit; I'm perfectly happy to have my node on the Internet. I
honestly don't *want* to have an address that might fool somebody into
thinking that my opinions were any more valuable than they are. Which is,
of course "very".
--
Peter
Mike Caine
uha...@sun.rhbnc.ac.uk (Malcolm Ray) wrote:
>Ah, Enterprise. That doesn't surprise me. Are they still unresponsive to
>complaints about net abuse?
Have there been any net abuses through Enterprise recently?
Matt Ryan
Paul Hilling wrote:
>
> Peter Ceresole wrote in article ...
>
> Well I *do* feel sorry for you. Being in a very small minority like you are.
> Major telecoms providers are obviously wrong and Peter *must* be right. Well I
> suppose that we'ed all like to think the world revolves around us.
> Unfortunately this ain't the case.
>
> You can quote RFC's until you are blue in the face. But if the rest of the Net
> using population go ahead without you, there is not a lot you can do about it.
>
> Paul
Let's hope that you all don't move ahead like this. If the RFC's are
ignored as you are suggesting, then interoperability on the Internet
will be severly damaged. Are you suggesting that this is the way to go?
Matt.
--
Matt Ryan - Network Engineer ma...@planet.net.uk
Planet OnLine Ltd, The White House, Tel: +44 113 2345566
Melbourne Street, Leeds, LS2 7PS, UK Fax: +44 113 2345656
Paul Womar
Paul Hilling <no....@spam.me.and.die.net> wrote:
> That may be the case. But you can't deny that there are quite a few
> providers out there that do have .net addresses. Every one of them can't
> be clueless. And as some of them are *major* communications companies, you
> must admit that they can't all be wrong.
Of course you can. AFAIK there are something like 10 companies that
give .net addresses to customers. Having 10 companies that are clueless
about the Internet wouldn't surprise me in the slightest.
> IMHO Virgin is one of the better ISP's out there, and doesn't deserve this
> vitriol from .net heads. You try ringing your techie support at 3am and
> see if you get an answer. I've just rang Virgin techies now (7pm) and got
> through on the 4th ring. And all the techies have been nothing but
> curtious to me. Even if they didn't have the answer right away.
It's a pity that they did something so stupid and selfish then, it
tarnishes their otherwise perfect service. Personally I have found the
responses from Virgin staff in this discussion to be absolute rubbish,
the fact that they do so in private and have made no attempt to respond
to the points raised against them goes no way to build my confidence in
their service.
--
To reply to this message there is no need to remove anything
from my email address, clever that!
Paul Womar - Ne...@pwomar.demon.co.uk
Paul Womar
Paul Hilling <no....@spam.me.and.die.net> wrote:
> Peter Ceresole wrote in article ...
>
> >"Paul Hilling" <no....@spam.me.and.die.net> wrote: >Bell South, AT&T,
> >Earthlink, and loads of others are *all* using .net >addresses. I
> >suppose they must also be clueless.
>
> >Indeed they are. And they've been told so, even if you have missed it.
> >Virgin is just the latest of the clueless, careless ISPs. No reason to
> >let them off the hook; they are all wrong, they are all shitting in the
> >common pool.
>
> Well I *do* feel sorry for you. Being in a very small minority like you
> are.
Care to give some figures on this minority ie how small is the minority
and what sample size was used? I mean you aren't just making it up are
you?
> Major telecoms providers are obviously wrong and Peter *must* be right.
> Well I suppose that we'ed all like to think the world revolves around us.
> Unfortunately this ain't the case.
It's not just Peter, it's anyone who can read and understand the RFCs.
The fact that you can't even set your newsreader to produce lines of a
sensible length hardly says much about your understanding of basic
netiquette, never mind anything more complicated such as naming
conventions.
> You can quote RFC's until you are blue in the face. But if the rest of
> the Net using population go ahead without you, there is not a lot you can
> do about it.
The really sad thing is that you think that breaking the RFCs is a way
forward, it's not, it's the quickest way to destroy the Internet.
Paul Womar
MCraddock <matthew.c...@NOSPAMvirgin.net> wrote:
> On Wed, 16 Jul 1997 19:55:39 +0100, Newsm...@pwomar.demon.co.uk
> (Paul Womar) wrote:
>
> >The really sad thing is that you think that breaking the RFCs is a way
> >forward, it's not, it's the quickest way to destroy the Internet.
>
> That's a little strong isn't it?
Possibly, it was the "going ahead without you" comment that I was
referring to, it may well have meant "continuing" rather than actually
being ahead IYKWIM.
> The only thing I really object to in this thread is the invective
> aimed at the Virgin users. It isn't a statutory requirement that
> people who use the Internet need to know the RFCs off by heart. They
> are a matter for the providers, and all complaints should be aimed at
> them rather than the people who use them.
I don't think I have had a go at any users just because their ISP is
clueless, it is because of their "Virgin broke the RFC so it must be
wrong because Virgin are great" attitude.
> I for one am willing to accept that perhaps Virgin shouldn't have used
> *.net at the end of customer addresses. However, they only appear to
> be in breach of a minor RFC which is hardly likely to cause the
> collapse of the Internet. They did so knowingly, which tells us that
> they are aware of the RFCs and their contents, although, as I'm sure
> one of you will say, this could be taken as a sign of disrespect.
This is what I really object to. The effect isn't IMHO major it just
says to me that Virgin don't care and they lack the co-operation which
is such an integral part of the Internet. Folloing the RFC would have
been just as easy as breaking it and in the long run easier. They
swiftly backpeddled and gave staff the london.virgin.net node which is
absolutely bloody stipd, the .net TLD was invented for this reason but
they are too stupid admit their mistake.
Paul Womar
Paul Hilling <no....@spam.me.and.die.net> wrote:
> Paul Womar wrote...
> >Yet another "person" using the same tired phrases from the same ISP and
> >using the same mail forwarding service.
>
> For a very good reason. If I change my ISP. I only have to change the
> bigfoot redirector.
I just find it very odd that so many people that think Virgin are a
great ISP are using a service for the sole purpouse that if they change
ISP then they won't lose mail, it sounds almost contradictory to me.
> Well I am sure that I could dig up some other providers in the UK who use
> .net addresses other than Enterprise and Virgin.
I can think of lineone.net, clara.net and possibly which.net, I'm sure
there are others, it's just that somehow Virgin was one that got picked
up at the begining of the thread, I don't think it was speciffically
targeted, that's all.
> >Have you actually read the thread, quite a few people "give a toss", the
> >majority of those that don't care are the clueless users of the clueless
> >ISPs.
>
> Sorry but only the .net nerds here give a toss.
So you think that anyone that can understand naming conventions is a net
nerd? FFS grow up.
> And they are by far in the
> minority.
Please provide some more details of your study, I'm sure it would make
interesting reading.
> The normal user is very unlikely to care whether they have a .com
> address or a .net one. Just so long as it works.
True but all you are saying is that people that don't know any better,
don't care.
> >It has been discussed at length several times in several groups over that
> >time, I only take 18 of 30,000+ groups and I've seen discussions about it
> >in uk.net, uk.telecom and uk.misc fairly recently. You being ignorant
> >does not mean that the topic has been discussed.
>
> Well I take 25 groups including a few MS ones.
MS being Microsoft? They don't appear to have a clue when it comes to
RFCs either, they are afterall the same company that thought it would be
a good idea to ignore the RFC that suggested that news servers keep the
same message id's and thus ended up duplicating messages and doubling
the volume of news postings. The same Microsft that made the deformed
article making Outlook Express, the same Microsoft that dismissed the
Internet as a passing fad.
Peter Ceresole
In article <33cd3bf4...@news.virgin.net>,
matthew.c...@NOSPAMvirgin.net (MCraddock) wrote:
>The only thing I really object to in this thread is the invective
>aimed at the Virgin users.
In fact it's aimed at *Virgin*; the users are merely involved by
association. The (minor) invective paints off on users when they themselves
post something spectacularly clueless but that's not special- it happens
all the time and everywhere on Usenet.
All that happened was that someone posted that Virgin shouldn't be giving
their users .net addresses. No big deal except that their users then leapt
to the defence of the indefensible and as in all the best threads it just
took off from there. The emails from Virgin admins to the main participants
didn't help things either.
But yes, it's only Usenet. Nobody dies.
Virgin still shouldn't be doing it though.
--
Peter
Ian G Batten
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
In article <1997071619...@pwomar.demon.co.uk>,
Paul Womar <Newsm...@pwomar.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> The really sad thing is that you think that breaking the RFCs is a way
> forward, it's not, it's the quickest way to destroy the Internet.
Are you seriously saying that giving email addresses ending in ``.net''
is the ``quickest way to destroy the Internet''? I think you should get
help.
I think those of us that run medium- to large- sized sites and have been
running Internet connections for a few years should get like ``Jessie's
Diets'' and each morning post ``Today, I have been breaking RFC...'' and
see if the Internet breaks. I'm using a news reader that sends ``MODE
READER'' so I'm breaking RFC977, and I have my border router configured
to silently discard source routed packets, which breaks RFC1122 3.2.1.8
(c).
ian
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Ben Dooks
In article <33c264e0...@news.virgin.net>
richard...@bigfoot.com (Richard Weller) wrote:
> On Mon, 7 Jul 1997 01:29:24 +0100, Newsm...@pwomar.demon.co.uk (A Net =
> Nerd) wrote:
>
> >Richard Weller <richard...@bigfoot.com> wrote:
> >
> >> On Sun, 06 Jul 1997 12:47:52 +0100, pe...@cara.demon.co.uk (Peter
> >> Ceresole) wrote:
> >>=20
> >> <a boring load of shite.>
> >>=20
> >> Who cares weather email address end with .net? Is it THAT important?
> >
> >Of course it is, it shows how clueless an ISP is.
>
> If you say so Net Nerd.
It is us 'Net Nerd's that keep this whole system running. We produce
the documents, invent new products and generally mop up the mess that
some users produce.
[snip]
> >> Why do the FFC rules say you are not surpose to have an address ending=
> in
> >> .net?
> >>=20
> >> I want a real good reason not one of your crumby "thats what staff are
> >> surpose to have" answers.
> >
> >The guidelines expressly state that a .net address is NOT for customers,
> >can't your ISP even read? It also means that people with clues wont go
> >near them or peer with them eg LINX.
>
> I am sure that they can. =20
It will be intereseting to see what happens.
> Virgin have had 60,000 subsrcibers (on free trial and left is included). =
> Does that
> say something?
>
> >> I know this posting is in quoted printable/mime but i don't care.
> >
> >You wouldn't.
>
> I don't and if people get crap then change your newreader to something =
> decent.
Is your definition of a decent news-reader one that does quoted-printable?
WTF do you need quoted printable in a news message anyway??
> >> Flame me if you like i couldn't give a t*ss.
> >
> >At least you know you are talking shit, it makes things so much easier.
>
> I am not. And at least i know it unlike you.=20
?
> Did you know that 90% of Net Nerd's live at Demon?
Maybe because we are inteligent, and know a good service when
we see one.
--
Ben Dooks, b...@fluff.org \
http://www.fluff.org/ | Oops, I think we broke her.
http://www.oaktree.co.uk/ |
Ben Dooks
In article <86874394...@office.demon.net>
cl...@demon.net wrote:
> Of course, you may have trouble checking whether ISPs are lying to you or
> not. I believe you can verify ours by doing a zone transfer of the DNS.
Thats a large amount of data to shift... I'm suprised you still alow
zone transfers from your DNS servers... most people seem to disallow
them by default...